Cumulus Workgroup or Enterprise – which one is right for you? As the names suggest, the two editions provide features and functionalities suited to different organisations needs and requirements. Selecting the ‘right’ solution depends a lot upon how it is to be used and the environment in which it will be deployed. The following information is intended to provide some broad guidelines on the different features of each – please contact databasics to discuss your individual needs.
The Enterprise edition, as the name suggests, is more suited for large, multi-office or global organisations that have more 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 industry and universities.
The Enterprise server architecture is more 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.
Enterprise comes with all the features of Workgroup but also comes bundled with a number of modules or add-ons that expand and enhance Cumulus functionality. There are advanced permissions for granular control of content, greater administrative management capabilities, statistical and usage reporting. Many of these modules are available for Workgroup if required but with Enterprise they are all automatically switched on.
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 endusers 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 with your existing data 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.
Additional modules that come included with Enterprise (but can also be added to Workgroup if required) are outlined below:
Enterprise provides for additional permissions than those available in Workgroup. 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.
You can hide individual categories or asset records from certain users or roles. Changes can be made manually via permissions templates or even automatically using Scheduler actions. No other records or categories need be affected.
This makes it possible to provide “private” metadata fields in your catalogs, such as “CIO Approved” or “Manager Approved” fields. Other users can see the fields if they have access to the view sets that contain them – but only those listed as editors of the fields can make changes.
The primary value this feature offers is data integrity. If your catalog includes a “Manager Approved” field and that field is checked, you know for certain your manager has approved the asset. Because these fields can also serve as control mechanisms for Live Filtering, this enables managers in your group to enable or disable access to certain assets just by logging in (from anywhere) and changing a value.
You can also create one-click distribution control! Create a “distribution control” field as a mechanism to enable a group of authorised users to immediately take any asset offline.
dbApprove
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.
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.
The Roles and Extended LDAP module supports:
• Using roles (Role-based User Management)
• User context fields filled by external authenticator modules (e.g. LDAP)
• Roles assigned by external authenticator modules (e.g. LDAP).
Filling user context fields, such as email and mailing addresses by an external source such as LDAP ensures Cumulus always has the most recent user data for the purposes of emailing notifications, addressing mailing labels and more, as provided by third party option products.
When roles are assigned by an external source such as LDAP, no Cumulus accounts are even required. Cumulus will honor the LDAP logins, and map LDAP roles to Cumulus roles, ensuring faster deployment and easier maintenance of larger sites.
Because access permissions can be based on groups, a single permissions change can now affect potentially hundreds of users. Roles not only make the administration of larger systems easier, they make temporary personnel changes easy on all systems.
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.
The Cumulus Servers gather asset usage statistics, including asset edits, printing, downloads previews and more. You can view statistics inside Cumulus, however the Reporting module enables you to also generate automated graphic and textual reports based on Cumulus statistics and search statistics as well. Reports can be configured per catalog, and run at time intervals you specify.
Customise chart formatting and output formats, and choose from font choices, colors, label styles, and report orientation.
The Cumulus Workgroup has long been the trusted DAM workhorse for a lot of our customers that wanted a simple collaboration and sharing platform – to create, find, organise and share digital content.
However, after introduction of Canto, the easy to use cloud DAM, we see more and more customers migrating from Cumulus Workgroup to Canto. Just a few benefits of migrating to Canto:
Visit our website to learn more about Canto or give us a call to discuss 1300 886 238.
• 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 automation of processes and workflows e.g. for approvals?
• Do we need email ordering of images/documents/products?
• Do we need integration with other systems?
