A short depiction of the history of UNIDAM, the University of Vienna’s Digital Asset Management System, is followed by technological and organisational considerations that lead to the choice of the present system. The particularities of the repository will be described as well as the difficult phase of migration from the former software version to the current one. An evaluation of current operations is given from a technical, an institutional and a user-centred view. Also, lessons learned over the years will be addressed, e.g. the confirmation that a scientific albeit not too specialised background might be helpful to understand wishes and needs from quite different domains, and to translate those into technical requirements. A short prospect depicts mid-term planning strategies which contain UNIDAM and its surrounding services as important components for the research and teaching infrastructure of the University of Vienna.