On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 22:22 +0100, Aage Johansen wrote:

> Steve Wiser wrote:
> > We store both TIFF images and PDF images. I am not sure of the
> sizes of
> > the image files... The total size of the databases is about 190
> GB.
> > The are split across 9 servers though as the images belong to
> different
> > clients.
> > We don't do gbak backups of the databases. We sweep them nightly
> and
> > back them up to tape (shut down access to the servers when we do
> this to
> > prevent corruption).
>
> Slightly inconvenient, but restore should be fast! Do you ever test
> the tape backup?

The tape backups/restores have so far worked great. We just do a simple
"tar" to get the files onto tape. Nothing fancy.

>
>
> > We did store the images in a file system once, but it started
> choking on
> > 10,000 or so files. I was faced with having the apps start
> creating
> > folders automatically and coming up with a plan to do this and
> still be
> > able to find the images or store them in the db. We tried the db
> and so
> > far it has worked out great.
>
> We now have (an estimated) 3 mill image files. Directories contain
> from
> 100 to approx. 8000 files.
> The first version of this system was purchased from a 3rd party. It
> stored
> TIFF images in files and handled the directory business, and kept the
> "inventory" in a Sybase database.
> We're now splitting the scanned images into directories at about 4000
> or so
> in each, and our own app is taking care of the "inventory" (in a
> Firebird
> database). I'll estimate it at about 300GB total, now stored in a SAN
> box
> off of a NetWare server. I've played with the thought of moving it
> all
> into a database, but ...

Yeah, if we would have taken the time to work out some type of clean way
to have the code keep the directories to a manageable level we probably
would have kept the files out of the db. I still cannot really say
which approach works better as I don't have any experience with a large
amount of images in a filesystem with database links to them. I do know
that a lot of image workflow products do not store their images in the
database, just the link.

BTW, how is the SAN working out? We are still up in the air about
whether or not we really need one... I kind of want to stay away from
fibre channel and go with iSCSI even though it is not as fast at this
time.

>
> OT: what do you use for showing (and printing) TIFF images?
>

When we show a tiff image on the web we just select it out and set the
content type and let the browser figure out what to do (normally Windows
Picture and Fax viewer or something like that will handle it). We do
have to do some bulk prints of tiff images (try not to, but sometimes
they can't data enter from the image) and we use ImageLib from SkyLine
Tools (www.imagelib.com). Seems to work well.

> --
> Aage J.
>
>
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