[dyednwool]

Is anyone out there successfully linking to Media of all types?

We're trying to get our Media working so everyone can start using it - we want to advise everyone to create linked Media objects, but I can't seem to create a successful link to a .jpg or .html object. I get an error that's nowhere in Knowledgeabase. We're on version 7.6 so not sure if that's something to do with the problem.

Does anyone successfully create media links to these?

[Melissa Siobhan]

I am not sure why it is not in KB but I am very certain that you can not link to a .jpg. I dealt with this with a photo project we were doing and had to convert all of the photos to .bmp in order to link them but they take up so much space.

Also, There is somewhere in either this forum or in the BB forum which is from a BB staff member who swears that making them embedded objects instead of links does not cause performance problems in your database (which is frequently someone's argument for not using embedded media objects).

Do you have a reason why you want to link them and not embed them?

[DrewAllen]

It's because RE is not simply storing a link to the file. I'm not sure what they are doing, but my guess is that they are using OLE to link to the object and OLE requires certain interfaces and the JPG editors don't implement those interfaces.

I wish that they would also allow you to link to a URL.

Drew

[DrewAllen]

The performance actual depends on a number of factors. Our situation is that we have a huge server 216 GB of free space, but our database is stored on a SAN (Storage Area Network) where we only have 15GB of space assigned. Our database is about 12GB, but we've had problems with the transaction log increasing enough to fill up the entire 15GB which causes RE to grind to a halt. There is no way that we can afford to start embedding files into our database until we get more usable space. Even if your database is small, if it's taking up all of the space, RE will take a tremendous performance hit.

The other issue is that if you are on the MSDE version you have a 2GB max database size and the SQL Server Express version has a 4GB max. Embedding files in either of these versions can quickly cause you to reach those limits.

Drew

[Melissa Siobhan]

I found the positng on the TRE forum. I am hoping Shaun does not mind the re-posting here.

"I know it's probably not good form for me to arbitrarily chime in on
this list, but I see this question a lot and want to be clear about our
official position. You should *absolutely* store them in the database.
We actually store media in separate tables, so there is no performance
hit (or wasted cache memory) when querying constituents.

Do not worry about storage in SQL Standard or Enterprise, it is designed
to easily handle terabytes worth of data without breaking a sweat.

Storing links is a fragile solution with a legacy back to the early 90's
when database storage technology was not good around BLOB data, and disk
space was much more expensive.

If you absolutely MUST use links for whatever reason (for example if you
are using SQL Express), at the very least be sure to use UNC file names
as opposed to mapped drive letters.

I hope that helps.

Shaun Sullivan

Blackbaud, Inc."

[paulmorriss]

I had this problem (BB247904) and it was fixed in 7.80.1122, revision 10.

[Andrew Gorczycki]

Shaun take on media storing should start with ......"... in ideal world.."
I support Drew comments, the notion that modern database can suport terabytes of data without performance hit is not saying anything about hardware and network infrastructure required. I believe anybody who is planning to store via media link should make a test how fast your allocated space would grow. Even if there are no constraint on the SQL servere storage side performance concerns are still valid for access to large documents and images via local network .Been there done this.
If you have unlimited resources hardware/network infrastructure Shaun's official BB take on media is valid, few of us if any have unlimited resources though.
Interesting question would be if BB has the same oppinion on media tab in BB hosting scenario where their hardware and network (with obvious unlimited resources) takes a hit or mayby be the price of hosting grows expotentially in line with storage demands.
There are other advantages of keeping linked documents outside RE database, as they can be accessed and managed by other document management program (bar changing the name and location) or accessed directly without RE if structure and naming convention is resonable.

Best regards,

Andrew

[Deb Fox]

Our office uses RE 7.82.1514.0

I am in the process of "trying" to create procedures for using the media tab. There is still some confusion about the best way to add media to RE. We have set up individual file folders on a server and place media documents in these folders. From RE we go through the media tab to connect these documents or media objects.

We have been told by our Tech Dept to select "Link". If we select "Link" we receive an error message: Unable to create link. It will be created as an embedded object.

I want to feel comfortable with what I am directing our office to do in the way of using the media tab
and want to have direct access to the files but I am inclined to just leave the folders out there with the media files not linked.

I have yet to have a "clear" understanding of how the media should work and the best option -- in layman terms -- I'm not a real techie.

Deb

[DrewAllen]

As I said earlier in this thread, I suspect that RE is using old technology from before the web was popular and before certain file types - like JPEG - were in common usage. This old technology needs information about the program required to open a given type of file in order to link to it whereas the web leaves it to the user's computer to decide which program to use. Because of this, the old technology is not very robust when linking to files. For example, you cannot link to a JPEG file or a GIF file, but you can link to a BMP file. I certainly hope that this flaw is fixed on the Infinity platform.

Drew

[dyednwool]

Deb -

I spent a lot of time figuring out this issue when putting together our
Media procedure. I'd be happy to share our procedure page with you,
which includes a grid of what you can/can't do with specific formats in
Media.

Contact me off-line and I can get you a copy --

Gina Gerhard
gg@nhcf.org

[Doug Creek]

To back Drew up here, our database is 12 gigs in size, 7.9 gigs of that is media items. We're in the process of moving the information from Media to papersave, but it's a very slow process.

Luckily, I have(almost 400 gigs of free space right now, and I can upgrade to 1.2 terabytes of space) unlimited disc space at the moment, but I know we're taking a performance hit from RE scanning that table.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrewAllen

The performance actual depends on a number of factors. Our situation is that we have a huge server 216 GB of free space, but our database is stored on a SAN (Storage Area Network) where we only have 15GB of space assigned. Our database is about 12GB, but we've had problems with the transaction log increasing enough to fill up the entire 15GB which causes RE to grind to a halt. There is no way that we can afford to start embedding files into our database until we get more usable space. Even if your database is small, if it's taking up all of the space, RE will take a tremendous performance hit.

The other issue is that if you are on the MSDE version you have a 2GB max database size and the SQL Server Express version has a 4GB max. Embedding files in either of these versions can quickly cause you to reach those limits.

Drew