RE: ImagePlus (VisualInfo) on AS/400

Bob,
Warning, I work for and Imaging and COLD manufacturer.  I will make this
statement not product specific and try to give you some good advice.

The volume of images and your bandwidth across your WAN are big variable
factors here.  I suggest you run some tests and maybe limit the size of the
batches.  Also, the number of employees you have accessing these images make
a big difference in retrieval performance, especially for accessing 3995s
with a lots of simultaneous hits.  These units are designed for long term
storage and not geared for hundreds of hits per hour.

For high volumes of access requests, I'd recommend staying with DASD arrays.
If you are going with the 3995s, I recommend that direct attached units (the
C40 series) these have better performance than the LAN attached units that
require an OS/2 server ( not that there is anything wrong with OS/2) and
definitely go with multiple drives per juke.

For storage usage, plan on the average single page image of text using 50K
of storage (Compressed) either on DASD or Optical.

For scanners you have a lot of choices on the market, Fujitsu, Bell and
Howell, Kodak, etc.  I personally see the new Kodak units performing with
more uptime than other units.  All of the wearable parts, (Rollers) are
easily replaceable in under a minute versus calling a technician to come on
site and dismantle and replace rollers (like a copier) with other units.

Bob, a lot depends on your business processes.  If you are processing tens
of thousands of invoices a day, your answers would be different from storing
a few hundred technical drawings a day.

Hope this helps.  Good Luck!


Regards,

Alan Schuetze

Magellan Software
The Leader In Document Mining Technology*
Tel: 949-455-9551  Fax: 949-455-9664
www.magsoft.com <http://www.magsoft.com> 


        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Marion, Bob [SMTP:Bob.Marion@ps.net]
        Sent:   Tuesday, May 25, 1999 11:28 AM
        To:     'Midrange-L@Midrange.com'
        Subject:        ImagePlus (VisualInfo) on AS/400


        Greetings:

        Has anyone in this group implemented ImagePlus (VisualInfo) on an
AS/400.   I am researching the specifics on implementation, functionality,
manageability and how well it  works in a mutil-location environment across
a WAN.  The scanning will be done at multiple sites and the images will be
sent to a central AS/400 where the images will be stored and retrieved from
multiple 3995 Optical Library.  We already have IBMs COLD storage software,
OnDemand/RDARS, for reports and it performs exceptionally.  Of course the
images will take more DASD and Optical space and more network resources for
sends and retrievals.

        TIA.


        Bob Marion
        AS/400 Technical Support
        Phone:  972/461-3186
        Fax:  972/461-3030
        EMail:  bob.marion@ps.net

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