Cloud DAM vs On-Prem DAM: Which Model Fits Your Team?

At Daminion, we recognize that not every technology platform or creative team is best suited for the cloud. In the ongoing discussion around cloud DAM vs on-prem DAM, we know that relying solely on cloud-based solutions isn’t always the right choice. Unlike many digital asset management (DAM) software vendors on the market today, we believe in a flexible approach that respects each client’s workflows, needs, and preferences.

One common argument is that the cloud is simply “the future.” While there’s some truth to that, it isn’t the full picture for every creative team. Even in today’s digital world, some workflows and business processes still need to be managed locally.

This is one of the many ways that makes Daminion standout in the sea of DAM vendors. 

Organizing, managing and distributing your company’s thousands of digital assets is important and requires a level of efficiency to the process and technology structure.

If your creative team is part of a company that has heavy security requirements or works with large files you are most likely one that is best served with a local server system.

Cloud-Based DAM and SaaS: Why They Exist Today

Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room. The SaaS approach for platforms is not all bad. The setup does have some redeeming qualities that fit some companies and their creative teams.

One of the biggest benefits for creative, marketing or sales teams is is the ability to offload IT responsibilities. Cloud DAM vendors handle implementation, maintenance, support, and ongoing updates.

This works for companies who have limited IT resources. 

For many companies though, there are still many important benefits to keeping your IT in-house. According to a blog post written by computertech.com, these can include direct control over staff and processes, intimate team knowledge of IT systems, long-term continuity, and, most importantly, full control over data and assets.

The unofficial reason these platform vendors operate in the cloud is because offering professional IT services is because it becomes a form of passive income for them.

They get to charge you monthly for services that quite often you may not fully use. And if you do, it may be for a couple of hours a month, a fraction of what you’re entitled to through your partnership agreement. 

The biggest risk to SaaS solutions

Something that vendors who host their platforms on SaaS storage solutions such as Amazon’s AWS or Microsoft’s Azure do not talk about is the complete dependency on these third-party storage companies to stay up and running at all times.

Most people will be quick to argue that those storage and hosting companies’ platforms ‘never go down’. 

Yet 2021 taught us that that isn’t actually true and these systems are more vulnerable than people realize. On Dec 7, 2021 Amazon had its third power outage in a month’s time.

This third episode lasted seven hours and according to a Washington Post article, the outage took down “a wide range of online giants, from the work chat rooms of Slack to the gaming store of Epic Games.”

The article goes on to say the following,

“Cloud systems such as AWS allow companies to rent servers and computing power over the Web, and they’ve revolutionized the Internet with promises of a reliable online backbone, available at any minute.

But the outages have underscored how this consolidation of the Internet’s once-distributed capabilities also means that a single failure can lead to wide-ranging, ripple effects, weakening the hidden backbone undergirding much of the Web.

“A single glitch in a high-profile provider will have huge implications on countless organizations of all sizes, in often very unexpected ways,” said Ed Skoudis, president of the SANS Technology Institute. Service interruptions are vast and impact thousands of companies and millions of users. We are putting more eggs into fewer and fewer baskets. More eggs get broken that way.”

Ed Skoudis, president of the SANS Technology Institute

Benefits of On-Premise DAM software solution: Reliability and Performance

Given your organization needs high levels of reliability in the software solution that houses and distributes your digital assets, uptime reliability is a critical factor. Your users are not beholden to the stability of hosting giants in order to get to the content they need to do their work.

Having your digital asset management solution running locally to your main system structure provides greater system reliability and easy access. 

The positive ripple effect is that users are able to access and use larger files faster, without dependence on internet connection, allowing them to get content out into the world quicker.

Performance degradation is dramatically cut down compared to operating out the cloud. Part of winning in today’s world is speed to market. Can you get your content in front of your customers before the competition steals their attention? 

DAM is responsible for security

When you have moved your DAM locally, your assets are now sitting behind your corporate firewall. Your assets are not sitting out on someone else’s storage servers, which also happen to be used by other companies, probably even your competitors.

According to a blog post by a SaaS consolidation service, Vendor, there are seven main security issues that need to be addressed by users of Saas platforms.

These issues include, “Misconfigurations, access management, regulatory compliance, data storage, data retention, privacy and data breaches, and disaster recovery.”

Now, to be fair, these issues don’t all simply go away when you move to an on-prem approach for your DAM.

But the reality is that those issues are handled by the provider. In most cases, your company has little to no say in how, what, or when they’re addressed. With an on-prem DAM, it’s different. Your own IT team decides what to fix, how to fix it, and when.

Asset Ownership

Let’s now talk about an aspect of the DAM space that actually is one of the biggest risks, asset ownership. To be clear we are not talking about copyright ownership of the content, but who owns the housing of your digital assets.

The reason this topic is a huge risk is that when you decide to put all your belongings that have been kept in someone else’s house you now become beholden to them, their rules and even their limitations.

‘Can’t I just move them from one DAM vendor to another if I don’t like how things are going’ you may ask?

You sure can, but stop and think about that for a minute. Without this trying to seem dramatic, let’s be honest with ourselves. 

System move? Storage as a Service (SaaS)?

The biggest risk when moving from one vendor to another is metadata. All the tagging, relationships, and structure built into your library must be retained and mapped correctly. On top of that, there’s the challenge of migrating the assets themselves from one storage system to another.

Once you switch vendors, the new system must reindex your entire library. Depending on its size, indexing and preview generation can take days (or even weeks) before everything is usable again.

Then there is another major issue, which is broken links. You can’t ‘port over’ any of the links to either share internally, embed into designs, or publish to external sites.

The first time you open existing Adobe InDesign files they will show the links to all the components as broken. Your designers could now run into problems or major time delays trying to relink components. 

Why is it difficult?

Now comes the complicated part. The taking of all the metadata, keywords, taxonomy, and tags from the previous system over to the new system. The reality is that when you add metadata, keywords and tags to an asset, they don’t actually get embedded into the file itself unless you do so as part of the export process.

Instead, the DAM uses a relational database to link all the data to the asset using a Unique ID or UID. 

Your new vendor will have to work with you and your previous vendor to find a way to map and align the data. And honestly, there is always a level of data loss or misalignment requiring months of auditing and redoing.

Additionally, if you’ve created any sort of collections or groups of assets your DAM Manager will have to spend time recreating all those collections in the new system. 

The point being, yes it can be done. But, it will take a lot longer than you think and will be really expensive to make the move. Moving from one Vendor to another is not something that should be happening with any regularity.

All of this is our long-winded way to prove the point that the advantage of having your DAM setup locally allows you to avoid all this time and expense. 

Now, there is one upside to using an On-Prem DAM, is if your assets are stored on NAS/File servers. Daminion specifically can integrate with your local file systems, Including costly Dell EMC ISILON stations.

Those assets can be more quickly indexed using file references. This is a benefit because you can minimize asset duplication, saving cleanup time and reducing upfront storage costs. 

Greater DAM Customization

The last benefit to highlight when storing your DAM locally is that you can customize the platform itself more.

With a cloud-hosted platform, the features and functionality are usually roll out to everyone simultaneously.

You can most likely configure some of the data input fields and your taxonomy, but that is usually where it stops.

If you need to customize the functionality in order to meet your workflow needs then your best option is to submit feature requests to the vendor.

Depending on the vendor, you may be waiting months or even years for those desired features to show up. Even then, they might not function completely as you wanted. 

In contrast, you can typically have some greater functionality to customize your on-prem platform to fit your workflow needs. Most of the time, you can set up a series of If This Then That (ITTT) triggers and actions. 

The one caution you need to take when customizing your platform is the ongoing maintenance, especially when you upgrade to a newer version of the platform. If you deploy an updated version, it may very well break your current customizations and you’d need to recreate them.

This can obviously be expensive and time-consuming. This is one reason why companies that deploy locally and customize will typically only deploy dot releases or necessary patch fixes. Otherwise, you can skip full version updates for a few years to maximize your existing customizations.

Payments

One of the last benefits to highlight with on-premise solutions over Cloud is how payments are handled. On-Prem DAM systems have an option for a one-time payment, while cloud systems will constantly charge you, every month.

This payment method can be critical for non-profit and research organizations that rely on grants to finance their technology needs.

Pros and cons of DAM systems

Deciding whether to host your DAM in the cloud, through the platform vendor, or in-house is not a straightforward decision.

Hopefully, though, this article will help address some of the most common talking points on this topic. To help we are including a side-by-side comparison for a quick visual reference of on-prem vs cloud. 

Do you have any more questions about setting up your digital asset management system locally for your organization?

Cloud vs On-Premise: Comparing DAM Systems

When choosing between cloud and on-premise DAM systems, it’s important to understand the key differences between them.

Cloud DAM

Cloud DAM, also known as SaaS (Software as a Service) DAM, is hosted on the vendor’s servers and accessed through the internet. This option is often favored by companies with limited IT resources, as it offloads the responsibility of system setup, maintenance, and upgrades to the vendor.

One of the biggest advantages of cloud-based DAM solutions is the ability to access your digital assets from anywhere, anytime, as long as you have an internet connection. However, you should be aware that your system’s uptime and performance will depend on the hosting company’s reliability.

Cloud DAM vs On-Prem DAM: Choosing the Best Model

Another point to consider is the ongoing cost. Cloud DAM vendors typically charge a monthly or annual subscription fee, which may include usage limitations. If your organization handles large files or requires heavy usage, these costs can add up quickly.

On-Premise DAM

On the other hand, on-premise DAM systems are installed and run on your own servers. This setup gives you direct control over your data and assets, as well as the IT procedures and staff involved.

With on-premise DAM, you have the advantage of enhanced security, as your assets are protected behind your corporate firewall. Moreover, you can potentially experience superior performance, particularly if your organization works with large files, since you’re not dependent on internet connection speeds for access and distribution.

When it comes to cost, on-premise DAM usually involves a larger upfront investment to purchase the software and necessary hardware. But over time, this can turn out to be more cost-effective, especially if you consider the potential for customization and the absence of recurring subscription fees.

Lastly, remember that with on-premise DAM, you’ll need a capable IT team to handle system installation, maintenance, and upgrades. You’ll also be responsible for data backups and disaster recovery plans.

Making the Right Choice Between Cloud DAM and On-Prem DAM

Whether you choose a cloud-based or on-premise DAM solution depends on your organization’s specific needs, resources, and strategic priorities. Both options have their pros and cons, and it’s crucial to weigh them carefully to make the best decision for your business.

If you have any more questions about setting up your digital asset management system, whether it’s cloud or on-premise, feel free to reach out to us at Daminion. We’re here to help you navigate this important decision.