ECM - Information Infrastructure

"Information infrastructure" interesting term! Well this is a term that I use to try and raise awareness that like any building it is the infrastructure supports all the other ECM deployment areas.

Information infrastructure is about putting the right information thinking and planning in place to make our ECM rollout a real success. Just as in building projects the infrastructure is not sexy, but it is essential to the structure and longevity of the overall building. If you have noticed any large building project it is the initial foundations and infrastructure that seem to take the longest. But once this in place the rest seems to take off, according to the plan, so to is it with ECM projects, you need a solid information infrastructure to build on.


If I use the term "information architecture" generally people are confused, and think in terms of the web definition of architecture. This definition has more of a focus on the structure that needs to be in place for the navigation and the web side of the Manage, Process & Deliver information chain. Yes there are linkages between the overall architecture and the infrastructure part but the core fundamentals of infrastructure go well beyond just the web.

Information infrastructure encompasses the core pieces of content classification and structural metadata that must be defined in advance to ensure that there is a clear understanding of what needs to be managed and how it will be managed in a business context. Along with this understanding you also need to define and map the set of business rules that will provide the glue to the content relationships. Then once this has been put in place you can concentrate on navigation and findability as the infrastructure is now in place to make the upper layers successful.

So that is a general look at Information Infrastructure. Soon we will look at bringing some of these pieces together realitive to MOSS 2007.