Sun Microsystems has launched the industry's first end- to-end Digital Asset Management (DAM) reference architecture (RA). This is a comprehensive specification for the design and deployment of a complete content management system - for television and rich media enterprises.

Using this RA, media businesses can leverage and extend their legacy platforms into next-generation digital asset management systems. WGBH Boston, the first customer to implement a solution based on this reference architecture, is the producer of nearly one-third of US public broadcaster PBS' prime-time television lineup and companion online content. WGBH has stated that through this solution it will be able to enhance the productivity of production staff, improve the quality and efficiency of broadcast production, and most importantly, reduce development cycles for new media services to an ever expanding set of constituents. These efficiencies will potentially result in substantial savings in both the cost of creating content and distributing it.

In addition, UDS broadcast station Thirteen/WNET New York, plans to adopt and implement the DAM RA in its exact state and form. The DAM RA's aim is to help media technology and business executives minimise the costs associated with their transition to a distributed content data center infrastructure. It describes each component, function and interface needed to deliver video, audio and rich media to heterogeneous and distributed networks for broadcast television and other professional media environments, and can be applied to education, finance, medical and government enterprises. The components include media ingest, logging, metadata creation, database management, security, transcoding, media storage with integrated Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM), support for post production, integration with both television automation and scheduling systems.

An official release states that it also provides a robust test suite, with loading, balancing, and scaling benchmarks, as well as a complete documentation package defining the performance characteristics of the system and its core components.