This is the first part of a “how-to” of storing images with Oracle’s Intermedia feature from ColdFusion.
To start of we already explained in an earlier post that Oracle has a feature called “Intermedia” which allows for advanced image manipulation trough PL/SQL. Thus with Intermedia we can manipulate images directly within the database without retrieving them first. Also, we can stream images to ColdFusion directly from Oracle without downloading them first.
Ok, so off we go with an explanation of how to store images in the database.
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Are you going to write part 2 of this article? Do you recommend storing images in Oracle vs. storing images on disk?
Hi Mitch
Yes, I am going to write a part two of this. I just haven’t had time to do so. We are currently very busy with finishing up our Digital Asset Management "eContentPark". There is the biggest IT Trade Show taking place in Mai here in Switzerland and we are releasing then eContentPark for free to the public.
I do recommend storing images in the database for a couple of reasons. Some of these are:
These are just some thoughts. I am sure there are more pro and cons to storing images in the database. We have developed another digital asset management solution in the past which stored images in the filesystem. Performance was the same as in the database and we have had problems with data being out of sync, security and some other things.
I can only speak of storing images in the Oracle database, because this is the only database I have found which has modules (like Intermedia) especially for images or media in general for that matter.
I hope this helps. If you have any further questions or comments please let me know.