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Cumulus Enterprise – why do organisations choose it, and is it for you?

November 11, 2019 Antra Silova

The Cumulus Enterprise, as the name suggests, is more suited for large, multi-office or global organisations that have complex workflow needs to oversee the content creation and management process, with typically several different stakeholders and associated teams involved. A great example here would be retail and manufacturing industries, or institutions such as universities. Don’t think your organisation fits this description? Take a look at Canto solution, the lightweight yet powerful sister of Cumulus.

The Enterprise server architecture is very powerful and allows for use of all available hardware resources, thus able to deliver greater loading and faster throughput, as well as providing a more powerful and robust database engine.

The extensive built-in features of Cumulus Enterprise allow to add specific tools to customise the software to suit your business processes and reporting obligations.

 

Distinguishing features of Cumulus Enterprise

Single Sign-On (SSO) integration

For some customers this has been a critical reason to go with Enterprise. SSO allows Cumulus end-users to access web applications without the need to log in again, and still retain their permissions.

Second license for UAT/ dev

Most importantly, Enterprise comes with a second license of the software that can be used as a staging, failover or development server. The ability to have a development server to test latest releases or new options based on your current solution prior to going ‘live’ on the production server is a major consideration. This is especially significant for those users reliant on 24-hour access to the solution with no downtime, and/or the IT department having strict standards relating to implementation of business solutions.

You could use your second license to run a mirrored copy of your Cumulus server. This enables you to split Web access requests between two machines, or limit Web access to the mirrored machine, reducing the load on your main Cumulus server.

Higher number of CPU threads

Our Cumulus Enterprise customers can take advantage of faster and larger processing of content which is key for larger organisations.

 

Modules inbuilt into Cumulus Enterprise

Extended Permissions

The primary value this feature presents is data integrity. Using category and asset-level permissions, the built-in scheduler can scour your catalogs regularly for issues of concern – such as expired usage licenses – and apply a permissions template that removes access to the assets, ensuring no one can access them until the situation is resolved.

Roles and Extended LDAP

In Enterprise, complete user management and access permissions can be controlled by a central system such as Active Directory (AD) and LDAP. Thus, users are not managed by the DAM team but by the IT team or by business administrators. Content can be controlled at a more granular level with individual characteristics of an asset, e.g. status or applicable usage, defining who can do what with it.

Usage Statistics and Reporting

The Usage Statistics and Reporting module expands on the standard collection of asset usage statistics. Create automated reports that help you value assets, fine-tune Cumulus and plan for the future.

  • discover which assets provide the most value
  • fine-tune metadata by discovering which search terms fail and which are most common
  • determine the value of an entire collection on a per-asset basis and anticipate growth and budget needs in advance
  • configure recurring, automated graphic and textual reports without IT involvement.

Additional modules to customise your Cumulus Enterprise solution

Digital Asset Request Solution (DARS)

This module provides option for external users to request download of selected assets from Portals when download restrictions are enabled.

Asset Lifecycle and Channel Distribution

Developed by databasics, this module provides an easier way to manage asset and content lifecycle giving you more control over content approval, publishing, expiration and distribution. Built as an approval workflow and channel distribution solution it uses standard Cumulus technology that can be easily supported, extended and repurposed. More on dbApprove in our blog.

 

If all this seems like more than you require, consider Canto – a lightweight yet powerful SaaS DAM. Canto is loaded with some great features, is easy to implement and manage.

Visit our website to learn more about Canto or give us a call to discuss 1300 886 238.

Questions to help determine if Cumulus Enterprise would be a good match for your organisation

  • How many power users need to be managing the content? How many will need training on the solution and require read/write level of access?
  • How many users need to upload content and enter metadata along with the upload?
  • Do we have detailed statistical usage and reporting requirements?
  • Do we need email ordering of images/documents/products?
  • Do we need automation of processes and workflows e.g. for approvals?
  • Do we need integration with other systems?

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