ECM Open Source Options, what's out there?

Hello, hello, hello is there anybody out there? as "Pink Floyd" would say in Comfortably Numb.

Well for a period of time we were all comfortably numb in the embrace of the multinational vendors as licence sales were pushed like logs into the ECM bonfire, but thankfully since 2000 we have seen the entrance of a couple of contenders into the ECM race that make things interesting. These two contenders in the ECM Open Source corner are Nuxeo and Alfresco.

So lets start with a Wikipedia snapshot of Nuxeo, founded in France 2000.

Nuxeo is a comprehensive free software / open source Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platform. It has been designed to be robust, scalable and highly extensible, by using modern open source Java EE technologies, such as: the JCR, JSF, EJB3, JBoss Seam, OSGi, and a Service Oriented Approach. It can be used to develop both web-based server applications and Rich Client applications.

Also, according to the CMS Watch ECM Suites it is reported tha Nuxeo is a good mid range ECM player (mainly due to its current France and UK only penetration) that has strengths in it's client options, well designed workgroup collaboration tools and it's standards based repository compliance. To quote the CMS Watch ECM Suite on Nuxeo.

Nuxeo offers decent collaborative document management technologies, on a
technically quite open platform. Nuxeo is one of the better options currently
available particularly for its target market of government clients. Except for
Alfresco, it is the only open source ECM option that can be considered for
critical enterprise deployment.

quoted from the CMS Watch ECM Suites Report 2008

Nuxeo currently has over 1,000 deployments, all be it most of them on the older platform variant based on Zope/Python. Now version 5.x is based on a JAVA platform base. Nuxeo's own explanation of the switch to the JAVA platform choice is well documented here.

Next, into the arena comes Alfresco. Founded in 2005 by John Newton, co-founder of Documentum® and John Powell, former COO of Business Objects®. Its investors include the leading investment firms Accel Partners, Mayfield Fund and SAP Ventures.

Alfresco, has certainly been somewhat the darling of the ECM circuit, due in part to the smart marketing expertise that the founders bring to gain visibility of the product. Again to quote from Wikipedia, here is a snapshot of Alfresco.

Alfresco is a free software / open source, open standards, enterprise scale content management system for Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems. Its
design is geared towards users who require a high degree of modularity and scalable performance. Alfresco includes a content repository, an out-of-the-box web portal framework for managing and using standard portal content, a CIFS interface that provides file system compatibility on Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems, a web content management system capable of virtualizing webapps and static sites via Apache Tomcat, Lucene indexing, and jBPM workflow. The Alfresco system is developed using Java technology.

CMS Watch place Alfresco into the "ECM Suite" company category. I remember talking to Alan Pelz-Sharpe about Alfresco at the AIIM Conference in 2006 and have been keeping a watching brief on the product and the company since. In summary CMS Watch have this to say.

In sum, Alfresco is a high-end ECM development platform that happens to run on
an open source business model. As an ECM platform, Alfresco is scalable enough
to slug it out with the best of the competition in some high volume projects,
but at the application level it remains immature. If you are looking for
industry-specific, out-of-the-box solution, you may want to look elsewhere.

The interesting point that I see with Alfresco that it is in fact a commercial concern operating with an Open Source business model. So where is the money? Well there are two aspects. Ongoing service contracts. If you want the enterprise capabilities and resilience then you buy a services and support contact to get into the Network version of Alfresco. Secondly there has to be an IPO coming somewhere, or a possible buy out by a suitor.

As at November 2007 it was claimed by Alfresco’s CEO John Powell that there are now over 29,000 working installations/deployments of Alfresco around the world (50 countries, 20 languages). The dig was that it took IBM/FileNet over 25 years to get close to this number of installations, whereas Alfresco has done it in 2 years.

Here is a reference to Islinton and Alfresco in a previous post.

So a brief look at Nuxeo and Alfresco, some time soon I will look at a feature comparison of Nuxeo and Alfresco from a product and business fit perspective.

Analysts and Acronyms? ECM EIM ABC?

What is it with analysts? Here we are with Enterprise Content Management (ECM) well defined and Gartner needs to get a new spin going! Why am I saying this? Well in reviewing the ECM MQ 2007 I realised that they have started to push the Enterprise Information Management (EIM) acronym.

I need to ask, is that not what ECM technologies are for the supporting and management of enterprise information? But to put a perspective for my following comments I must quote from the Gartner MQ what they are saying.

"Moving Toward Enterprise Information Management
Content technologies are steadily gaining more capabilities to integrate with, or handle some aspects of, structured data, as well as document-centric data. Gartner’s vision for the evolutionary path of these technologies is called enterprise information management (EIM). IBM, Microsoft and Oracle have strong opportunities, as database vendors, to bring these two worlds together. As companies plan for an increasingly information-centric future, they must understand how the development of today’s content management applications will fit into an overall architecture. For information management, solutions such as content integration and service-oriented content applications will gain momentum to resolve unique business requirements. Information access has always been a critical component of an ECM suite and will play an even bigger role in helping companies sift through structured and unstructured information as it expands to include content analytics."

Maybe I have been somewhere else but this is not a new realisation and feels like new money for old rope. Maybe it is all down to language and definitions. After all we have had "Information Technology" (IT) for a long time but it feels a lot like the "Information" piece always seems to drop out and it should be technology only.

Information people "feel" like the poor cousins at time when it comes to senior executive buy in. If there is any focus on information it generally is at the data in the database level rather than an enterprise level of how information comes together regardless of the form or function.

Guess it is easier to see the hard tin and understand a database than have to do the heavy thinking required to get a concept to a model and then out to the business stakeholders for translation into technology.

Enterprise Content Management is in its broadest sense is the management of content across the enterprise, so far no rocket science here. Maybe it is all in the way that we view the content, or maybe the way the analysts view it. Here is how I view it anyway.

Firstly my definition of ECM is"

“The methods, tools and technologies that enable an organisation to manage, process and deliver content across the enterprise”

To me the methods (methodologies) and tools represent the people and process part of any ECM solution, including the elements of Governance, Policy, Strategy and the inclusion of the ConOps (you could also call it a vision document or roadmap) as outlined by AIIM in the ECM training modules.

Not forgetting that it is the ever important Change Management and communication that make or break a project as well. Drilling into the tools (more specifically) we can then talk about the way that we will turn content into information. I use the premise that:

• Content + Context = Information

Now content in a broad sense is either structured (generally in a database), unstructured (generally office, e-mail or paper documents) or semi-structured (such as XML data streams).

Tools such as a Business Classification Structure (BCS), or Classification, or taxonomy, plus metadata and controlled vocabulary all provide to the organisation the ability to give context to the content, thereby placing context around the content and giving us information.

These tools, combined and delivered through a solid methodology, and supported by the necessary change management, communication and appropriate technology will provide a better opportunity for success in any ECM project.

So roll on ECM, EIM and ABC to you all.

ECM - MOSS 2007 A disturbance in the Force

Reading a Gartner report early in the morning, as you do ! I came across one about MOSS that was almost akin to "A disturbance in the Force". From the key finding section came this comment

Enterprise interest in SharePoint is causing some concern that the enterprise
content management (ECM) market will face a recession.

And further into the document was this very interesting statement.

Another interesting piece was that Enterprises spend billions of dollars on ECM
Software but ask any CEO for the 30 second benefits that they have accrued and
most will struggle for an answer.

So we have interesting times around us folks, we can now blame ECM for global recession ! Yes I know I'm twisting the words, but if we look at the two comments extracted for the report we can see that there has been vast buckets of cash thrown at ECM Software and very little value is realised. Why? Well the technology alone is only an enabler to the overall business process, and the process requires people.

Change Anything anywhere and you need to change behaviours and ways of working. This is an area that naturally resists change, like a Force itself it moves organisations in a way of working as people have tried to do there jobs with what they have.

So now we have a low cost, reasonably high value tool that is easy to use and by all accounts is spreading like wild fire. A disturbance, Yes, recession, Yes for the fat bloated suppliers that delivery less value for more money, but NO for those that figure out how to make it work and compliment MOSS with some other products to get what you need today and to position for tomorrow.

ECM core components an overview

So what are the core components of an ECM product set? Well over the years the components have changed, so it is always difficult to get a full definition up front. Based on the various analysts in the market place here is my peg in the ground for ECM core components

Firstly, you need to realise that in this diagram there is a mixture of traditional product features and some supporting services that are supplied by the overall system, such as classification. So let's go through the pieces, some will be very self explanatory so I will not elaborate that much on them as we go through. let's begin:

Records Management - Here we deliver support to the management of both paper and electronic records, areas such as classification and retention and disposal are strong features that need to be delivered. Records management is a big driver, but beware of making it the be all and end all. Any good project should have compliance as a natural outcome to what you are trying to achieve.

Imaging - The capture and storage of paper having transferred the paper into a digital format for long term preservation. The electronic format and storage is perferably in the same repository as the other paper and electronic content from records and document managment but not always the case. You will find imaging is big in the Insurance and Finance sectors by the bucket load and has in the last couple of years had somewhat of a renaissance of sorts as it has been incorporated into a wider ECM play.

Web Content Management - management and control of web site style and content. Traditionally this has been out on its own, but if you look strategically it is just part of a spectrum of contnet that needs to be managed, processes and delivered across the enterprise. Therefore it has now become mainstream in ECM based solutions. Infact if vendor does not have an option here they will not make the quadrant.

Collaboration - Big word. lots of different meanings. Generally collaboration is aligned with portal. The Portal provides the interface to glue together office content and content from other sources such as line of business applications and the wider records and document management repositories. It is all brought together into a collaboration interface. Once again in days gone by we had a Portal market that lived by itself in this area, but now the Portals are also just part of a wider ECM offering.

Classification and Search - A Classification is all about grouping or bringing items together under a common category. An example is in records managemtn where a functional based classification has the hirearchy of Function Activity Task - at the end of the hirearchy folders for containment may or may not be developed. There are many other types of classification that can be built as well, you may hear of classification also called taxonomy. Now Search is well search. In some ECM systems the search is closed into the ECM repository only, meaning that you can only search the scope of contnet in the repository. However more forward thinking and innovative vendors will also offer a search engine that reaches outside of the core ECM repository in to the file system, line of business applications and the web.

Document Managment - The management of electronic documents, can be confused with Imaging for paper to electronic, but at the end of the day is is really about getting those office documents under control and into a repository where we can manage them effectively. Thing secure and relaible storage and access with version control and you are on your way. Yes MOSS 2007 does well here with Office documents.

Print and Distribution - This area covers the Computer Output to Lase Disk (COLD) and enterprise report management (ERM). Generally this is the domain of the top right had quadrant players, but there is also others that are now starting to provide these services on top of a MOSS base, such as ClearView ECM, and Knowledgelake.

Process Managment - covers both workflow (human based with system linkage) and business process managmenet (BPM), which is generally system to system and handles long running buiness processes. These days the two are generally interlinked and workflow tends to handle some form of documents within the overall process that is being managed. This is a area that should be of most interest to you as it is the one area that is the heart of all businesses. See the ECM Model to get a view of what I am trying to get across here

Archival and Storage Management - Archiving denotes the ability to capture and maintain content in a secure and manageable repository for a defined period of time. So retention and dispoal rules generally apply here. Most common forms of archiving around file system archiving and e-mail archiving. Traditional ECM vendors that have come from records and document management have generally had e-mail integration early on, but have in the lst couple of years added e-mail archiving to the mix as demand has driven it. Storage Management denotes the capability to manage storage of the overall respository and to provide soem form of HSM type capabilities. There are not many vendors that can do this other than the software + hardware players such as EMC and HP.

Digital Asset Management - Here we are looking to support the capture, annotation, cataloguing, storage and retrieval of assets, such as digital photographs, animations, videos and music. Digital asset management in ECM is a new thing and while the services to build a DAM system are there they may or may not be realised by the organisation as such. This is one area where specialised solutions are still selling very much like web content management used to.

E-mail management - OK folks, here is the big one. Hands up all those you do not have an e-mail problem. Not too many hands there! Well the big area that is driving is e-mail archiving, but archiving is not records management and the real issue is really around managing the "business transactions" that are flowing through the e-mail systems. Most ECM vendors provide front end integration to Outlook or Notes Mail but rely heavily on the end user for intelligence to get the e-mail into a system. Archiving provides a great vacuum cleaner to capture everything. If there is one area that needs real sorting this is it.

Forms management - Heavily aligned with the process management area you should see this popping up everywhere. There are a lots of e-forms projects on the go with everything from claims process to the basics leave forms. To get value from this area it will be combined with collaboration and the process side. Once again the traditional ECM vendors are pulling the forms into the overall ECM suite.

Well that's all folks, 12 components with a little explaination on each. Good luck out there becuase in the ECM world we all need some.

ROI in your project ?

Management are from MARS and Techie's are from, hmmm, Pluto and marketing well they like ice cream ! Here is another great "Greg the Architect" video that looks at ROI. Yeah I know it is not directly ECM, but get some neurons working and you will see the links, or the gaps that you have in your current project.



Again this is a great way of getting across a message and oh yeah marketing do like ice creams.
And I forget to mention that Sarbanes Oxley does not allow us to provide cake with this blog!

ECM - MOSS 2007 Top 10 things to avoid

So MOSS 2007 is a great platform for driving collaboration and usability around getting documents and other electronic information.

Here are the top 10 things that you should avoid. OK so it's not just MOSS 2007 that these apply to. But given the amount of MOSS out there and the types of people involved it is a timely list.

1. No business objectives - Why are we doing this anyway? You have got to have a connection to the business objective that you are trying to solve. Otherwise you will get a File Server on steroids result. Lot's of messy content with a pretty interface.


2. No measures for success - If you don't know what you are doing then how can you measure it, I guess failure then comes as a complete surprise.


3. Setup.exe - Commonly called the "Nike" install; That's right, a straight install with no fore thought will spell mid term disaster. This generally indicates that all the other points that we are talking in this list will not have been covered up front. In that case, Good luck guys!


4. No Governance - You need sponsors and people to make this all happen past setup.exe, who will provide the high level air cover, own content, administer sites, decide and make changes and ... (take a breath here !).


5. Lets put is all on one box with no planning - Prior infrastructure planning for growth up front equals a real pain for the migration later on. Not to mention that you will also need to ask for more tin. At this point I will put in a plug for virtualisation, think about it, seriously!


6. No information architecture - If you don't know how content will be structures then you won't have a clue where things will go the chances are you will not find any of it later, on. Also you may as well welcome yourself to Site Collection hell right now.


7. No rollout plan past setup.exe - So now that's all installed what next, you better have a plan past setup.exe please. Who's first, why, what for? And what extension and development needs to be done up front before you get rolling?


8. No communication plan - What , how, for who and when?


9. No training - Sorry we have spent all the budget, you told me this was intuitive! Wrong answer, you need to plan for the training and make sensible decisions up front.


10. No backup, recover or DR plan - Things go wrong and this has now become a mission critical platform for enterprise content, what is you get out of gaol plan?

Oh, and did I forget testing? Oh, don't worry it will just work anyway, at least it does on my desktop!