Documentum Vs SharePoint
· The obvious - Sharepoint only runs on Windows using Microsoft SQL Server. If you are enterprise standard is UNIX/Linux or Oracle/DB2, then Sharepoint is not a valid option. Documentum is OS and database agnostic. Documentum is supported on various OS and database configurations.
· The next obvious – Sharepoint is built on ASP.NET; thus, customizations are done via .NET framework. Documentum is built on DFC, which is built on Java. You should consider the development and support skills of your staff when considering which system to choose.
· Content Storage - Sharepoint stores content within the SQL Server database. This allows Sharepoint to utilize SQL Server native search capabilities. This also means that backup of content is solely dependent on backing up of the database. Documentum stores content on a file storage system and content metadata in any database. This architecture allows for multi-server single docbase configuration. Since content is stored on file system, you can also create a mix storage architecture composed of SAN, NAS, RAID, tape, etc.
· Sharepoint 2007 is tightly integrated with Office 2007. Documentum has some light integration with Office through Webtop Application Connectors. Documentum has stronger integration with other authoring applications including Dreamweaver, QuarkXPress, and Adobe InDesign.
· Sharepoint provides various mechanisms to access and modify content when offline (eg Outlook, Access, etc). Documentum only supports offline editing if you install Documentum Desktop application.
· Sharepoint 2007 supports rights management with Office 2007 natively. Documentum requires you to install Information Rights Manager to have this feature.
· Both Documentum and Sharepoint provide the ability to create custom object types. However, Sharepoint’s object model does not seem to support object inheritance.
· Lifecycle features (eg applying actions, defining entry criteria, applying lifecycle to multiple documents, etc) is more extensive in Documentum than in Sharepoint.
· Documentum security model is more extensive than Sharepoint. Documentum has extended permissions that allow users to perform specific functions (eg change ownership, change state, change permissions, etc).
· All objects in Documentum are secured using the security model. In Sharepoint only certain objects can be secured (eg web site, list, folders, documents, etc).
· Content can be only published to Sharepoint site; however, if content needs to publish outside of MOSS repository, this requires custom coding. Content can be published to any website using Documentum Site Caching and Site Delivery Services. Documentum also has portlets for various portal vendors that allow those portals to access content that is stored in Documentum repository.
Documentum + VMware = It really makes sense
October 4, 2006
Before attending Momentum - this year, I knew very little about how VMware fits in with Documentum architecture. In the past, I have used VM images to set up different configurations for sales demos - this use case is very rudimentary compared to the powerful features that are now available with latest version of VMware.Here are some of the new features:
- VMotion - live real-time migration of VM images from one server to another
- Dynamic Resource Scheduling - dynamically balancing of resources across resource pool
- HA Enhancement Support
Development Sandbox
- Create developer image that can be cloned to be used by all developers - great time saver for WDK developers
- Pass development image easily to test environment
- Consolidate and reset test bed rapidly
- Save multiple versions of test images to be reloaded at any point
- Keep development/test image available during product upgrade cycle - this would have be very helpful during 525 to 53 upgrade that I was part of last year
- Clone production data into UAT environment easily
- Real-time scaling
- can scale horizontally - add more content servers to host more users if necessary
- can scale vertically - add CTS/DTS on a server that is not highly utilized
- Test patches on multiple configurations
- Rollback previous image - helpful if you need to rollback the upgrade of Content Server/docbase
You Installed Documentum - Now What?
April 6, 2007
One of the most common questions when implementing a Documentum solution is how do you bulk load documents into the system.There are several options available depending on your requirements.
- Use native client applications (eg Webtop or Desktop Client)
- Build a custom application
- Buy an COTS product
Webtop and Desktop Client support multi-file import; however, it only allows you to import multiple files to a single folder in the repository. It does NOT have the ability to import a directory tree (with files) from a local file system.
Build a custom DFC application
A relatively simple DFC application can be built to import a directory tree from a local file system and re-create the folder hierarchy with files in the repository. This option supports the capture of filenames and folder names, but this does NOT generally have the ability to assign metadata to custom attributes. The assignment of metadata requires some form of data input file that lists attribute values for each file. This can be accomplished by more programming; however, there are several COTS products that provide this kind of functionality. The build vs buy discussion involves many factors that will not be covered here. To determine the best product, one must evaluate all of the requirements against each product’s capabilities.
Buy decision
Here are some third party products:
- McLaren Docloader
- BlueFish Dixi
- Documentum Import Manager