Digital Asset Management (technical preview)

Digital asset management Bundled: Community edition Version 5.0.0-beta1 Magnolia 6.3 compatible

This is a technical preview of version 5.0.0-beta1 of the Digital Asset Management (DAM) module, referred to as DAM 5. This preview is intended for testing and evaluation purposes only and must not be used in production environments.

To learn more or to request access for testing, contact us at dam5.feedback@magnolia-cms.com.

DAM 5 technical preview information

If you want to explore the DAM 5 technical preview, review the details in this section carefully. This section provides essential guidance on installation, compatibility, and limitations to ensure a smooth evaluation process.

Install the DAM 5 technical preview

DAM 5 is not yet publicly available. We offer only a technical preview for testing purposes, and you must not deploy it in production environments under any circumstances.

DAM 5 works with Magnolia 6.3.9+ (DX Core and Community Edition) under specific conditions and is planned to work with Magnolia 6.4.

To request access to the technical preview, contact us at dam5.feedback@magnolia-cms.com. We encourage you to test it, learn more, and share your feedback at the same email address.

Once you’re given access to the DAM 5 technical preview module, follow the installation instructions.

Prerequisites

We recommend following these steps before trying out the DAM 5 techncial preview:

  1. Upgrade to the latest maintenance release of Magnolia 6.3.

  2. Read the release notes for the version you are upgrading to as well as for all intermediate versions.

  3. Back up the dam JCR workspace.

  4. Make sure you have the following module versions installed:

DAM module version Compatible module versions

5.0.0-beta1

Magnolia CMS 6.3.9+

DAM App module 5.0.0-beta1 (required)

Imaging module 4.1.0-beta1 (required)

Image Recognition 3.0.0-beta1 (optional)

  1. Make sure you install and configure the JCR S3 submodule to connect to an appropriate AWS S3 account.

Migration information

The technical preview currently doesn’t support the migration of existing assets.

DAM 4.x to DAM 5

  • If your DAM 4.x implementation already had assets stored in JCR, those assets remain untouched.

  • If you upload assets before configuring S3, the binaries and metadata are stored in JCR.

  • Once you configure the S3 bucket connection with DAM 5, new asset binaries are stored in S3 and their metadata is stored in JCR.

Hybrid Assets to DAM 5

  • Storage parameters differ between DAM 5 S3 usage and Hybrid Assets.

  • If your Hybrid Assets module implementation already has assets stored in JCR/S3, those assets remain untouched.

  • Once you configure the S3 bucket connection with DAM 5, new asset binaries are stored in S3 and their metadata is stored in JCR.

  • You can use the same S3 bucket or a different one.

Future versions plan to include migration scripts to move JCR-based assets to DAM 5 with S3 binary storage. Other scripts are planned to migrate Hybrid Assets module assets to DAM 5.

Technical preview limitations

The technical preview of DAM 5 has the following limitations. This list may not cover all issues, and other challenges may arise.

We’re actively working to address these limitations:

  • No rollback option: After you install the DAM 5 technical preview in a Magnolia 6.3 environment, reverting to DAM 4.x is not guaranteed.

  • Asset deletion issues: Deleting assets may not function reliably at this stage.

  • Image Focal not supported: The Image Focal module is not yet compatible with DAM 5.

  • Erratic import/export behavior:

    • Importing an asset already in S3 creates multiple assets with different JCR-stored metadata pointing to the same S3 binary (via the mgnl:binaryReference property). This can cause data inconsistency if you delete an asset without understanding the shared binary reference.

    • The same issue applies to users of the existing Hybrid Assets module, which stores binaries in S3 with different parameters.

About DAM 5

The DAM module in Magnolia CMS provides the DAM API and its implementation. It is always used with the DAM App (technical preview), which provides the applications that are built on top of these APIs. For other module dependencies, see the compatibility matrix.

Decoupled asset binary and metadata storage

In DAM module 5.0 and later, Magnolia decouples asset binary and metadata storage, allowing binaries to be stored in AWS S3 while keeping metadata in the dam JCR workspace. This approach reduces the size of the JCR, speeds up publishing, and enhances search capabilities due to optimized metadata storage.

Overview of the DAM 5 storage architecture

For S3 configuration information, see the DAM JCR S3 submodule page.

Decoupling metadata and binary storage benefits customers who:

  • Work with many assets or large assets, such as videos or high-resolution images, that don’t fit efficiently in JCR

  • Need to store assets externally in a system that doesn’t support full metadata management

  • Use external storage solutions that are incompatible with the full DAM API

Choose a storage method—JCR or an external provider—at deployment time and keep it for your project’s lifecycle. A "hybrid" storage approach isn’t supported; you can’t store some asset binaries in JCR while others are in an external provider.

The different storage methods don’t impact how authors use assets in the Magnolia AdminCentral UI.

For an overview of DAM features available in Magnolia, see the Digital asset management feature page.

See the DAM API for developer-oriented information on extending functionality.

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