This FAQ covers common questions related to our products. For more technical questions, please visit the Customer Portal. If you have questions about your purchase, registration or customer account, please contact customer service.

Asset Versioning

• What do you mean by Digital Assets?
  Digital asset is a term that includes binary and text files both. Designers, creative professionals and Software developers generate and consume such files. Examples include C++ code, Photoshop (PSD) files etc. These are valuable assets that need to be protected and stored securely.
• What is Asset Versioning?
  Digital assets are valuable files that need to be stored securely. During their creative process, graphic designers and software developers, commonly, like to create multiple revisions of the same file. Asset Versioning gives you the ability to go back-n-forth between these various versions for reasons such as a customer finding an older version more appealing; or, the source code in a prior version not containing a bug that is presently crashing the application.
• Why can't I just use a source code version control system?
  Source code control systems are optimized for smaller text files, while, modern digital asset versioning systems like Zoom have been optimized for both binary and text files. The Design & Development landscape has also changed significantly in the past decade; whether you are a game developer or a graphic designer you would be working with large binary assets as well as smaller text files. You need a solution like Zoom that is up to 50 times faster than existing systems while delivering almost 2000x in disk storage reduction.

  Secondly, its their age. Most of these systems were designed over a decade ago with a vastly different hardware model in mind. For instance, CVS was designed in 1991, Subversion in 2000, and, Perforce in 1995. Zoom takes advantage of the latest hardware architecture, be it multi-core savvy desktop applications, Gigabit+ network enhancements, or, newer RAM designs, to offer the best performance in its class.

• Why is rock-solid asset versioning so critical?
  Look at what happened to Pixar Animation Studios while making Toy Story 2. An accidental delete on the shared server wiped out the entire movie, putting them at risk of losing a year's worth of work. Using Evolphin Zoom, they could have created a secure repository of digital assets, maintained multiple versions to go back-n-forth, and, eliminated the need for team members to muck with a shared server by using the Zoom client to access their digital assets.

  The bottom line is that if you are spending significant time and effort in creating valuable assets, you need to give them the best place to live - Evolphin Zoom.

• Is Zoom really tailor-made for digital artists?
  Yes, Zoom has a rich feature set for multimedia content. For example, you can browse through the various versions of an asset visually. This means that you get to preview the thumbnails corresponding to each version of your asset and it's immensely handy if you think about the alternative: if you did not have thumbnails to preview, to compare any two versions you would have to pull them out from the server. That would cost you time, network traffic and disk space. With Evolphin Zoom, preview thumbnails come near instantaneously to your desktop! The workflow features have been designed after surveying hundreds of creative professionals and software developers. You will find a near perfect match between your actual design workflow and our product feature set.
• So I need to learn a whole new version control paradigm?
  Not really. Zoom is tightly coupled with various tools like Eclipse IDE, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Autodesk Maya, etc. So if you are a digital artist working on your favorite tool, Zoom is integrated right into the tool. You don't have to launch our application separately. You never have to leave your workspace to get our services. All the functionality is delivered to you at your doorstep, well... finger tips!
• Can I put an annotation or a comment on a version ?
  Yes, you can put an optional annotation on any version you change. Further you can perform a full text search on annotations to find matching versions.

Performance & Scalability

• What makes you so fast?
  We have invested several years in researching version control technology. Researchers from IIT, Oxford and other top institutes working at Evolphin Software have come up with a patent-pending database and version control technology that is especially optimized for the current crop of hardware. The result is, we can squeeze every ounce of performance from that quad-core desktop you just purchased! For instance on a recent benchmark on a quad-core desktop we were able to import 67 thousand binary assets in under 30 seconds versus over 1600 seconds for the competition.
• Storing multiple versions of binary files; won't that take up too much space?
  Normally it does. Even if you were to concatenate all the versions in a single file and compress them using Zip (Git does that), you would be hard-pressed to see more than a 50% compression rate. Besides, it would take too long. Using our break-through DataSqueeze technology, we can achieve up to 99% compression for asset versions.
• How do you get so much compression for versions?
  We can't reveal our secret sauce for obvious reasons, but we can tell you that we use an adaptive scheme which selects the appropriate algorithm based on the type of the file. In addition, we do a lot of magic with disk IO to make it go really fast.
• What platforms do you support?
  We support all the three major platforms - Mac, Windows and Linux.
• What are the system requirements?

  WINDOWS
  Windows XP SP3, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008
  
  UNIX
  Kernel 2.6.18, libstdc++ v6, certified on Red Hat, CentOS, Fedora Core, Ubuntu
  
  MAC OS X
  - Mac OS X ver 10.6+
  
  Web Client
  - Recommended: Mozilla FireFox 3.5 .
  - Supported: Google Chrome 4.1, Microsoft IE 8, Mac OS Safari 4
  
  Hardware
  - 1280x1024 minimum recommended resolution for client desktop
  - 100MB free hard disk for install
  - 512MB Minimum RAM

  To take advantage of the performance pack, we recommend hardware born after 2007. Zoom loves DDR3 RAM for its higher transfer rate. On the server-side it likes to cache aggressively so more RAM you throw at it, better the performance gets. Our support engineers can work with you to come up with appropriate hardware guidelines.

• How many concurrent users do you support?
  Each Zoom server is designed to handle over ten thousand concurrent clients without breaking into a sweat. Based on your hardware, that number could go up. We scale to the most demanding workload you can come up with.
• Is this an Enterprise grade asset store ?
  Absolutely, the performance, scalability, workflow - all these features are designed with a large enterprise repository in mind.

Workflow

• What's so special about your workflow product?
  Workflow is an over-used term, we know that. What we have done, is to look at the modern creative process deeply and come up with a solution that integrates tightly between the popular tools you already use and our Asset versioning system. Using our workflow product, you can browse your assigned tasks within your favorite application. You do not have to send out emails to notify team mates about the status of your tasks. You don't have to alert them when you check-in changes for review, Zoom will automatically notify reviewers. When a task finishes, the next one in the workflow hierarchy is spawned automatically without user intervention. The user only has to focus on the actual task at hand. All work associated with managing a workflow has been presented to the user as simple button-clicks.
• Can we use the version control component standalone?
  Yes, you can. Versioning and workflow are the two core thrusts of Zoom. Lot of users/organizations want to start off with our high performance version control with the built-in DataSqueeze technology. We allow you to configure any one set of services, instead of both. So, you can use versioning alone or workflow alone - or both of course. But we suggest that you explore the workflow component too, setup needed is minimal, you will be surprised to see how nicely it aids in streamlining your organization's processes!
• Do you support hierarchical reviews ?
  Yes. Organizations & groups need multiple levels of approval for critical workflows. Zoom allows arbitrarily nested reviews. Rejection by an upper level approver can trigger the entire task to be re-started with all the intermediate reviews performed again. This allows senior team members or project managers to veto changes approved by subordinates.
• Why should Version control and Workflow be tightly coupled?
  The main reason is that these two functionalities operate upon the same target - namely the digital assets. You work on digital assets - source code or binaries - to complete tasks assigned to you. These assets are what you have to show for your task. To monitor the progress of a task, you need to track what is happening to your asset - whether it is being worked upon, or reviewed by a superior or whether it is being certified as publish-worthy. While working on the task, you end up creating multiple versions of the assets. If a reviewer rejects your changes, you have to submit newer versions for approval. Once your changes are approved the next person in the workflow needs to consume your published/approved versions. Remembering and passing around the various versions manually is chaotic. All this is shouting for tighter coupling between versioning and workflow applications! And that is exactly what Zoom boasts of.

Security

• Can I give my customers read access & review privileges?
  Yes. You can define a 'customer' role and put any number of users in it. Next you can assign 'read only' permissions to the 'customer' role. Finally you can create review tasks with the 'customer' role as the approver. Your customers can then comment on, review & approve versions. No more emailing versions or URLs around!
• I hate security, it gets in the way?
  Zoom security sits lightly on your machine. The entire security layer of our product is non-intrusive and weaves itself into the core functionality without asking you, the user, to do any chores. A simple login is all we need and everything else about access control is readily configurable by the admin, with intelligent defaults, using our Web console.

Namespace

• How do you prevent duplicate files ?
  When you check-in a file in to the Zoom asset repository, we track its unique checksum or hash. If a duplicate copy with a different name is imported subsequently and the checksums match, we simply store an internal link to the file. So even if you and your team-mates have copied & renamed files around, you can consolidate them into a single asset with all the incoming links available for your preview.
• I came across the term, "namespace management". What is it?
  It is one of our flagship features. Namespace management refers to managing the history of renames, moves or deletes to a file or folder over time. Digital assets in a team setting get moved around. Team members can conflict with each other as they try to rename or move assets and folders. For example, if a team mate moves the directory afx/scene/rainx to afx/scene/cloudx unbeknownst to you, while you were happily modifying afx/scene/rainx/static/drops.psd, what would happen? Can you easily resolve such a conflict? Should you deal with it, by imposing a ban on all folder moves? Should you require your team-mate to lock down the rainx subdirectory while they ponder a move, and thereby blocking you and other team-mates from accessing the directory? Zoom eases such scenarios via its patent-pending namespace management technology.

  With Zoom, you have no worries. You can restructure all you want using Zoom and not see any lost files or duplicate files or any such mess up that, over the years, we all had come to associate with namespace merging!

Misc

• Can I split my assets and users into multiple projects?
  Yes, Zoom supports multiple projects with an independent admin or lead for each project. The project admin has autonomy on who is assigned to a project, asset security, roles for managing reviews, their own project specific reports, etc. All Zoom commands are project aware.
• Can administrators monitor the activities on their repositories?
  Yes, they can. In fact, you can, not only monitor, but extract trends and patterns from our reporting section. A web based console for admins is the place to use this feature. Zoom constantly analyzes the activities on the repository and maintains important data like the number of commits to the project, and, tracks workflow timelines to see if tasks get done within the due date or not. This information is presented in such a manner that you can see trends and patterns emerging from the details, letting you spot key performers in your organization, or identifying bottlenecks by laying bare the delays in any stage of your workflow.
• What kind of real-time reports do you support ?
  Zoom dynamically creates real-time reports, like star performers, assets or folders which are current hotspots, timesheet roll-ups, workflow progress, check-in activity by users and much more.
• Do our system admins need rigorous training in order to run the Zoom server?
  There seem to be so many features... Do we have to put our system administrator through rigorous training in order for them to be able to configure and run the Zoom server?

  Hardly. Zoom comes with an easy to use feature set and a simple but detailed documentation. Installation is just a single button-click effort. Configuring the server would only take very minimal man-hours. Once up and running, Zoom acts like well-oiled machinery. You would not be required to baby-sit the system! You could change the configurations of the server any time you want through the web interface.