Data logistics

The data logistics services a key requirement of Information Technology "content (content) to distribute". This is done using different media (floppy disk, CD, DVD, USB stick) and increasingly also through new processes (Internet, download, mail).

Originally, logistics itself was understood as the main function of materials management. The traditional logistic order consists of seven requirements (7R):

the right amount
the right objects
in the right place
with the right information
at the right time
in the right quality
at the right cost to provide.

The customer determines what is “right”.

Basically, data logistics pursues similar goals, but focuses primarily on digital media and provides significantly expanded services: storage and processing of digital data, production, packaging, shipping, as well as documentation and archiving of the manufacturing processes. As a rule, there is a transition from digital production bases (software, data, information, images, music, video) to physical products (floppy disk, CD, DVD, USB stick, printed matter), or a digital template should be duplicated "lossless". The data logistics ensure the quantitative, qualitative and temporal success of the processes and the spatial mobility of the objects under consideration. (Wiki) In addition to the distribution of content in physical form, the need for electronic data storage, provision and distribution [download platform, online update, software filling stations] is growing. Worldwide availability and economic reasons such as costs and the time factor play a decisive role. Both methods place a high value on security and integrity.

origin

The origins of data logistics go back to the early 1970s; At that time, the first mobile digital data carriers came into circulation , floppy disks with the appropriate disk drives. Basically, large market segments were served:

Game software (e.g. for Commodore C64 )
Demo programs
Booklet supplements (Chip & Co.)
Commercial software products
Driver collections
Databases (campus plastics database)

Data logistics as a service

While data logistics has primarily satisfied IT's basic need for content distribution in the past 25 years with a large number of physical data carriers (floppy disks, CD, DVD), another process change towards virtual, dynamic data distribution is currently in full swing. Economic, but also ecological considerations force a rethink: in the past the focus was on the (often supposed) price advantage of mass production, today the need for individualization of production and logistics processes is growing. Increasingly, “a customer” receives their individual product. In addition to changed production processes, this also requires a realignment of the entire process chain. This affects the content producers / owners, service providers (data logisticians) and recipients / customers.

Different markets (business and consumer) and diverse content (functional software, data, price lists, advertising content, audio, video, etc.), divided into free and paid content, are to be served. All markets have one thing in common: the high need for security (the right content for the right customer), speed (time to market), quality (product design and processing) and of course also for reasonable prices.

The resulting challenges are:

Optimization and standardization of all business processes
Introduction of on-demand-supported production processes
Integration of the internet for the order process
Automated update processes
Media-neutral data storage
Provision of download platform (software filling stations)

Data logistics is therefore the management of these services.

literature

Thomas Marko: data logistics. Management of information flows. BSG 1999