Introduction
Digital Asset Management is focused on managing digital assets and there are a variety of tasks associated with it. They can be tasks related to distribution or recovery and also include annotating the data and cataloguing it as well. This would include both hardware and software required for the data management. An important notion is that digital asset management also includes the protocol associated with the aforementioned tasks as well.
History
Generally the domain of digital asset management emerged when there was a need to manage an asset and store it digitally. Initially the main target was that the target in question be saved in the best possible resolution and the representation should be of highest fidelity as well. This is where the concept of metadata jumps in. Metadata can be described as the basic description of the target as per the requirement of the user or the system in question. For this purpose certain standards or templates were developed. Another related term is that of proxy copy, which can be said to be the lesser resolution result. Owing to the need different level of solution providers emerged for digital asset management. Some of them belong to the enterprise level category while others are large organizations. The difference between them is the number of assets that it can manage.
Features
The mainstream features of digital asset management can be divided into three main types based on their focus. The first domain is that of brand asset management system which concentrates on usage within large organizations. Here the basic principle is the re use of data for various sectors of the organizations. The next category is that of library asset management system. In this case the concentration is on the store-retrieve principle. The best example for this type of data would of video/photos archives. The next type is that of the production asset management system. This last type focuses on managing data that has been made for media purposes. So this type of digital asset management focuses on digital media production. Video games, films and animation would fall under this particular category. An important to note in all these cases is that the software being used for this purpose can be open source or other wise.
In the previous section we discussed the enterprise level and large organization based solutions. An enterprise level basically targets a huge number of assets and also workflows. However, one it comes to area like specifically manufactured products which have the option of customization, we have the organization type of solution model.
Tips and comments
While we are talking about digital data management, it is important to note that the area of media asset management would also fall under this category. It should not be treated as separate as the underlying principles are same. It should be treated as a sub category of digital asset management. As the name of the management type indicates, it refers to management of the visual and audio aspects. Very often companies need to handle the archiving of media content, so this sub category has been made to deal with it effectively.
