CLOUD COMPUTING

Digital Asset Management Moves to Cloud

R. Colin Johnson | Date: 09-19-11 | Comments

Digital asset management systems (DAMS) were traditionally based on in-house software running on internal servers, but the cloud's scalability and global reach has created a new generation of DAMS.

Software as a service has snagged yet another previously in-house data center application, according to cloud-based digital asset management system pioneer VRX Studios, whose MediaValet is claimed to be the world's first cloud-based DAMS.

VRX Studios migrated to the cloud out of necessity, since its client-base of more than 10,000 travel industry businesses and hotels worldwide (including Hilton, Hyatt, Fairmont, Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz) needed a DAMS that could scale to any size and be accessible from anywhere in the world. After surveying the available DAMS, VRX Studios decide to roll-their-own based on Microsoft's Azure. The result was MediaValet, which is hosted in six data centers on three continents--America, Asia and Europe--and accessible from the 23 data centers in Microsoft's global content distribution network.

Digital everything--photos, video, and documents--can be stored in the MediaValet digital-asset management system (DAMS) in the cloud. (Source: VRX Studios)

"None of the existing DAMS out there could meet our need for flexibility, scalability and worldwide access," said David MacLaren, president of MediaValet. "So we created MediaValet, which requires no special software, just a browser, can expand to meet any sized storage needs, and which can be quickly accessed from anywhere in the world."

After VRX's hotel customers asked to use its DAMS for storing their own digital assets--from brochures to videos--VRX decided to offer the MediaValet SaaS to other enterprises, resulting in dozens of new clients. These clients ranged from small enterprises housing just a single type of media to giant global conglomerates housing hundreds of different types of media.

"Since offering our MediaValet [service], we have been overwhelmed with demand from every industry all over the world including education, health care, retail, wholesale, semiconductors, ad agencies, you name it," said MacLaren.

For small companies, MediaValet offers a low-entry price, with no upfront costs and a billing model where they only pay for the storage and bandwidth currently being used. For big chains, MediaValet offers numerous levels of security options, global access for up-and-down loading and compatibility with thousands of different file formats so that assets only need to be stored once with real time rendering (to different sizes) and transcoding (to different formats) handled on-the-fly.

MediaValet leverages Microsoft's suite of tools including Microsoft.NET Framework, Microsoft Visual Studio, iQuery, JavaScript and ActionScript. MediaValet's Presentation Engine, which previews digital assets in galleries, was written on SQL-Azure and produces analytics across Azure's entire spectrum of storage services including "blob" storage for media libraries, "table" storage (for metadata) and "queue" storage (for uploads).