DAMlivery - The smart image delivery platform

Conversion

For example, to display product images that are in the DAM on a product website, the images must be adapted for the target channel. Adapt means for example:

Adjust the size, e.g. 1024 pixels wide, 768 pixels high
Cropping, only a certain part of the image is needed
Conversion to JPEG, GIF, PNG, WEBP instead of a TIF

In modern marketing, images are needed in different sizes and formats (variants) for different channels. So not only one image is exported, but one image from the DAM is needed in many sizes and formats. It is not uncommon for an asset to be exported in up to 20+ different formats. This is time-consuming and takes up a lot of space, as images are also exported that may never be retrieved later.

Data export and storage

The DAM system is normally responsible for converting the assets. To ensure that this workload does not affect the users working with the system, either additional conversion resources are allocated exclusively for this purpose or, what is actually the rule: the data exports are carried out during times when the DAM system is idle, often at night. Once the data has been exported, it still has to be transferred to the target systems. The more target systems, the more elaborate the process and the guarantee that all the data will get there.

Unfortunately, problems occur from time to time with this type of distribution: An asset is not exported correctly, a target system does not accept the data, hard disks/online storage do not have enough space. The product website still shows the old image or images are missing completely. This is unpleasant and makes every channel manager despair, but unfortunately this is often the reality.

Asset Lifecycle

However, decoupling an asset from its variants brings another problem. Sometimes images also have to be removed from channels. This usually has legal reasons and is accompanied by a certain urgency. This may still be practicable for a single variant, but if several assets with several variants are to be removed from channels, this can quickly become a task that should not be underestimated and for which someone must also take responsibility. On many CDNs, asset variants that have long been locked in the DAM are still lying dormant.

Introsection Image — Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash

Raising the curtain for DAMlivery

However, since we are not talking about theoretical constructs here, but about problems that occur on a daily basis, we have worked with our clients to find a way to better control this process. Together with our customers, we looked for a way to better control this process. The result is DAMlivery. DAMlivery is not another export solution, but a direct interface into your DAM system.

DAMlivery allows assets to be directly addressable as resources via unique URLs, combined with a powerful and performant transformation facility. This access to the DAM allows assets to be delivered via DAMlivery in all desired formats - including size, format and cropping adjustments.

The necessary variant formats are defined centrally in DAMlivery and can be called up immediately. It is important to mention here that all assets are available in all formats, but only those images are processed that are requested. So instead of transferring images to downstream systems, only resources (URLs) are passed on. DAMlivery delivers and stays connected to the DAM system to update or lock/delete all variant resources belonging to an asset if needed.

DAMlivery as CDN Gateway

In order to return control of the variants to the customer here as well, DAMlivery can serve as a source for a CDN. The CDN then defines its own storage time for each variant. Once this has expired, the CDN contacts DAMlivery to check whether the variant is still up-to-date. Images can thus be made available worldwide with high performance via your usual mechanisms, powered by DAMlivery.

CDN Hooks (available soon)