DIS System Architecture & Design 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: When designing a digital imaging workflow for a newspaper with strict 30-minute deadlines, which system architecture consideration is most critical?
- Maximum image quality with lossless compression
- End-to-end latency and fault tolerance (Correct answer)
- Support for the widest possible color gamut
- Compatibility with legacy film scanning hardware
Correct answer: End-to-end latency and fault tolerance
In time-critical workflows, minimizing end-to-end latency and ensuring fault tolerance are paramount so deadlines are met even during component failures.
Question 2: In a digital imaging system, what is the function of a load balancer placed in front of image processing servers?
- To compress images before they reach the processing servers
- To distribute incoming processing requests evenly across multiple servers (Correct answer)
- To convert images between color spaces before processing
- To authenticate users before granting access to image files
Correct answer: To distribute incoming processing requests evenly across multiple servers
A load balancer distributes client requests across multiple processing servers to prevent any single server from becoming a bottleneck.
Question 3: Which metadata standard is most widely used for embedding technical and descriptive information directly into digital image files across different software platforms?
- Dublin Core
- XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) (Correct answer)
- ID3 tags
- IPTC 7901
Correct answer: XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform)
XMP is an Adobe-developed metadata standard embedded in image files and supported across virtually all professional imaging applications.
Question 4: A DIS professional is designing a backup strategy for a 20TB digital archive. Which backup approach minimizes daily backup window while ensuring full recoverability?
- Daily full backups only
- Weekly full + daily differential backups
- Weekly full + daily incremental backups (Correct answer)
- Monthly full + hourly snapshots only
Correct answer: Weekly full + daily incremental backups
Weekly full plus daily incremental backups minimize the daily backup window by only capturing changes since the last backup, while enabling full recovery.
Question 5: What is the primary advantage of using a content-addressable storage (CAS) system for a large digital image archive?
- It organizes files in hierarchical folders for easy browsing
- It automatically eliminates duplicate image files by addressing content by hash (Correct answer)
- It encrypts all files using AES-256 by default
- It converts all images to a standard format upon ingestion
Correct answer: It automatically eliminates duplicate image files by addressing content by hash
CAS systems use a cryptographic hash of the file content as its address, automatically deduplicating identical files and ensuring data integrity.
Question 6: In a digital imaging system, which protocol is most appropriate for transferring large image files (>1GB) across a WAN with high packet loss?
- FTP over standard TCP
- UDP with no error correction
- Aspera FASP or similar UDP-based accelerated transfer protocol (Correct answer)
- HTTP/1.1 without chunked transfer encoding
Correct answer: Aspera FASP or similar UDP-based accelerated transfer protocol
FASP and similar protocols use UDP with proprietary error correction and congestion control, achieving near line-rate speeds even on high-latency, lossy WAN links.
Question 7: A digital imaging system uses a tiered storage architecture. Which criteria should primarily determine when an image asset moves from Tier 1 (SSD) to Tier 2 (spinning disk)?
- File size exceeding 100MB
- Image resolution above 50 megapixels
- Access frequency dropping below a defined threshold over a set time period (Correct answer)
- File format being RAW rather than JPEG
Correct answer: Access frequency dropping below a defined threshold over a set time period
Tiered storage decisions are based on access frequency and recency — infrequently accessed assets migrate to slower, cheaper storage to optimize cost and performance.
DIS System Architecture & Design 3
When designing a digital imaging workflow for a newspaper with strict 30-minute deadlines, which system architecture consideration is most critical?