Hosting

Hosting refers to the process of storing and making accessible digital files or services on a remote server. In most discussions about Digital Asset Management, hosting implies that the system will be managed externally by the vendor and/or an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Hosting can be either shared between several customers of the provider or dedicated where the whole server is set aside. For hosting to be effective, there are three key components necessary: an operational server, available storage capacity to hold files and bandwidth to send/receive requests. Specialist DAM hosting services where the whole provision is outsourced also need application services and (usually) a database server also.