Deployment types

Helix DAM can be deployed in Standard or Enterprise deployments for manual on-premises or cloud installations. Standard deployments were formerly known as Combo deployments and Enterprise deployments were formerly known as Cluster deployments.

The following information explains the major differences between the deployment types, depending on the installation environment.

Note

Helix DAM is built on top of Helix TeamHub. To install Helix DAM, you use the Helix TeamHub packages.

Quick comparison

  Standard Enterprise
Time to setup Minutes Hours
Complexity Low Moderate
Servers 1 2
Availability Low Moderate

Standard

Standard deployment is the easiest to set up. It is quick to set up, it does not require the provisioning of multiple servers, and you do not need to worry about inter-server firewalls and advanced configuration. Standard deployment is suitable for bare metal servers, cloud computing instances, and local virtual machines.

For details of the technology stack used by Helix DAM, see System architecture.

Combo deployment

The biggest drawbacks of Standard deployments are the downtime required during hardware failures and the effort needed if you ever want to migrate to a Enterprise deployment.

Bottom Line: Choose Standard deployment for the fastest setup, without a large up-front hardware or IT resources investment.

See Standard setup for details about using the Standard setup.

Enterprise

Enterprise deployment splits Helix DAM into two roles:

  • The Helix TeamHub and Helix DAM Web applications

  • The TeamHub DB (database)

Enterprise deployment needs at least two servers to operate because Helix DAM Web connects to TeamHub DB. Enterprise deployments require tuning of the network firewall to allow inter-server communication. See firewall requirements.

Cluster deployment

Helix DAM is delivered in two standalone packages: hth-web and hth-db. The major versions must be kept in sync. See Releases.

Enterprise deployments share similar drawbacks to Standard deployments. However, Enterprise deployments have the advantage of being future-proof for high availability and redundant clusters (see below). The physical separation of the server roles also increases security and eases maintenance.

Bottom line: Choose Enterprise deployment for a highly available and redundant Helix DAM environment that is scalable without a large up-front investment.

See Enterprise setup for details about using the Enterprise setup.