The DAM Book...Now!

[peterkrogh]

Books are in-stock.  To order go to www.thedambook.com/pages/purchase.html

[rfreschner]

Peter - I found your web site this morning (from a post on the iView forum) and ordered your book from Amazon after reading the 1st chapter posted there.  Just what I've been looking for!!     I also want to thank you for the discount on ordering iView there - I've been evaluating it since before V3 came out and the discount gave me the incentive to pull the trigger.  Good luck with your book!

[peterkrogh]

Thanks for the note.  If you have any questions about subjects in the book, feel free to post them here.
Peter

[rfreschner]

I'll certainly take you up on that offer - thanks.  Can't wait for it to get here.   

[rfreschner]

Well, I managed to outsmart myself.  Based on the projected delivery date, I had Amazon ship to my office instead of my home.  However, instead of their January ship date prediction, the book shipped a few days ago and I would have had it on Friday.  Probably a good thing though, as I have 13 staff performance evaluations to get done over the next week and I would have spent the time reading your book instead. 

[Amademan78]

Hi Peter

I just wanted to say thanks for what looks to be a great book. I have spent almost a year now trying to find a good DAM strategy. After much research on the web and trials of software I haven't had much luck figuring out a plan. I am halfway through the book and getting some better ideas. I work for a University and have been using an old version of Fotostation that just isn't cutting it anymore. Once I'm through the book I'm going to take a more indepth look at Iview. My biggest problem is getting stuff out to clients more quickly and keeping a good searchable archive that departments such as news and publications can make use of. I'm sure I'll have some upcoming questions once I finish your book.

[geoffjohnson]

I just received my book today.  Thanks Peter, it looks like I will be up a while.

Geoff Johnson
http://maloneandco.com

[David Anderson]

Peter,
Your book came along just as I was trying to find a way to instill some order into the personal digital chaos I have managed to create over the past few years. I got the book a few days ago via Amazon.co.uk and I'm already half way through. Thanks for providing an excellent and detailed coverage of a topic that is more complex than it seems at first glance. I'd already attempted to grapple with many of the associated problems without reaching any firm conclusions, and all of those problems (and many more) are covered in your book. Well done!

Without wishing to detract in any way from my excellent opinion of your book, I do have one comment to make so far.

On page 113, you state that digital tape is "probably still the backup medium of choice for large network systems, because of the way it works with backup software .............. digital tape is an option, but I don't recommend it". I'm struggling to understand what you mean by "because of the way it works with backup software" and I think that you criticise tape for the wrong reasons.

About 5 years ago, as an IT Manager, I had to specify several new servers and set up new backup facilities for my company. After some research, I came to the conclusion that DLT tape offered high capacity, relatively high transfer speeds, and IIRC a quoted 20 year tape media lifespan after a huge number of head passes. The predicted benefits were borne out in practice and since then available tape capacities have greatly increased (e.g. SDLT600 offers 300GB uncompressed). The only reason I am not planning to use DLT tapes for my image backups at home is the high cost of the drives. Backing up my full archive to a single DLT tape instead of a heap of DVDs would be much more convenient. Big corporations don't trust their data to unreliable media and I think you can assume that a proper tape rotation scheme using DLT is a very safe (but expensive) option.  

Regards,
David Anderson

 

[peterkrogh]

David,
thanks for the nice words.  Indeed, this is more complex than it appears at first.

I'm in total agreement with you about tape.  Since I was not going to suggest it, I did not want to spend a lot of time analyzing the different options.  There are better versions at high prices, or affordable solutions that have functional deficiencies.

I have recently heard that there might be some new tape options that are priced better and don't have the same issues of recovery speed and possible drop-outs. It could present a better option.  One thing that is certain is that we will get better media storage formats in the not-too-distant future.  In the book, I was trying to craft a system that would work with current, affordable technologies, and that could be fairly easily migrated to new technologies as they arise.

Peter