using Kodi in enterprise local network

Hi,

I am currently working on a project of installing Kodi in an enterprise local network in Windows.

I understand that using SMB will be better than UPnP as it will be a local network, is it right ?

Also, is it mandatory to have a database ? I understand it is needed to store and retrieve the metadata about the media, only in case we need to look for media by their metadata ?

Thank you very much for your answers !

Charlotte