Joomla Chicago Meeting July, 2009: CMS CageMatch II

Open WCM Landscape and Leaders Comparison 07.08.2009

Agenda
Web Content Management
Trends and Landscape
Assessment Overview and Methodology
Summary Results
Product Assessments
Alfresco
Drupal
Joomla!
Magnolia
Conclusions

Web Content Management

WCM Definitions
Web Content Management (WCM) refers to the creation and maintenance of information and related assets intended to be consumed through a web browser. This can refer to content intended for the public Internet or private Intranets.
Web Content Management System (WCMS) describes the software responsible for controlling and delivering content as well as the administration of the user roles and privileges involved in the process. WCM Systems are generally used to enable multiple non-technical users to easily author, edit, translate, and organize web content from creation to publish.

Why Web Content Management?
Properly implemented, a Web Content Management solution should:
Reduce content update costs by enabling content authoring and deployment by business users instead of technology specialists
Improve quality of content through consistent, tech-facilitated content review processes (workflow)
Improve consistency of content (structure and format) through the use of content templates and tech-facilitated enforcement of the corporate style guide
Improve the effectiveness and efficiency of addressing marketing objectives for SEO/SEM and site analytics
Ensure consistent application of business requirements for content currency and archival / retirement through rules automation
Provide enhanced responsiveness to business needs for new consumer features via vendor-provided components
Reduce time to deployment for new site sections / microsites via site & content templating capabilities
Free technology resources to focus on site capabilities, design and performance instead of content authoring and maintenance

Traditional Website Deployment: Manual Process Inefficiencies Request Deploy Did you mean? Clarification Wait Wait How is this? Review Wait Ready now? Approval Internal Coordination Web Server In a traditional Website deployment model, process inefficiencies increase cost, limit innovation, and constrain business value. Design Manage Business stakeholders are fully dependent on the available capacity of IT to sustain the velocity and value of their primary digital marketing channel. Business / Marketing Manager HTML Developer Content Author

Web Content Management: Direct Engagement of Content Owners Author Web Server Review Design Content Lifecycle Automation (w/Approvals) Business / Marketing Manager HTML Developer Content Author

Trends and Landscape

Current WCM Trends
Top WCM vendors have moved beyond addressing tactical problems like the “Webmaster Bottleneck” and are deploying products for organizations placing strategic importance on the web channel
Syndication
Usage reporting has evolved into Web Analytics
Understand the business impact of site changes
For known users, integration with back-end systems, such as user repositories, for enhanced reporting
Identify the content that best meets business goals such as lead generation and purchase conversion
Content has consumers that will choose how they consume information – news media, vendors, customers and more
Content also needs to be distributed, and possibly personalized, across channels such as email, XML, even print
Once the content is syndicated, determine how the usage can be tracked and even monetized
Rich media (especially video) is becoming a core part of employee training and customer support
This places increased demand on not only content production teams but the infrastructure to stream and serve the content
Indexing rich media introduces new challenges that simple meta tags can’t address
Analytics
Contribution of content does not happen on just one side of the firewall, yet still requires management
Feedback and forums provide an additional opportunity for tracking the Voice of the Customer
Ratings are an additional piece of metadata that helps to identify high value content
Rich Media User Generated

Four “Flavors” of WCM
Interwoven
Day
Vignette
Oracle
Fatwire
Drupal
Alfresco
Magnolia
Joomla
DotNetNuke
Enterprise Open Source How Much? How Supported? Representative Vendors Key Question
OpenText
Ektron
Sitecore
Percussion
SharePoint
Content on Demand™
Clickability
CrownPeak
NextEdit
Midrange WCMaaS (WCM as a Service) How Effective? How Reliable?

Enterprise WCM
Are we going to get the right level of attention from the vendor given the scale of our implementation?
Who brings the implementation expertise to the table—the vendor or an SI?
Do we have the business needs & organizational maturity to take advantage of what an Enterprise solution has to offer?
What are we really licensing / do we need everything that the vendor is bundling?
What’s it going to cost us to get on the release treadmill?
Questions to Ask
Highly flexible, configurable WCM solutions delivering extensive capabilities OOTB
Prebuilt components / extensions for commonly requested features (e.g., social networking, basic workflow / deployment)
Designed for environments with high content velocity (frequent updates to content, range of participants in the authoring and review process
Architected to support high traffic, highly fault-tolerant implementations
Key Characteristics

Open Source WCM
How dependent is our organization on its software vendors for guidance and support? Are we self-starters or high maintenance?
Is there an “enterprise support vendor” for the product? Does the vendor actually understand “enterprise”?
How healthy / robust is the open source community behind the product? Is it growing, stable, or waning?
How are core product releases timed / structured? How painful are upgrades?
What are the attitudes towards open source in our IT organization?
Questions to Ask
“… and it’s free!” Low or no costs associated with licensing the WCM product
Products built on open standards with robust user communities
Innovations in WCM approach and features at this level often percolate upwards to Enterprise and Midrange WCM products
Varying degrees of fit and finish in the offering—some offer a complete OOTB WCM package, others more of a WCM framework
Business IT attitudes have generally shifted towards acceptance of open source tools for a range of enterprise applications
Key Characteristics

Assessment Overview

Assessment Overview
Purpose : Identify key WCM requirements and assess existing Open Source tools for their ability to meet identified requirements.
Goals and Objectives:
Develop a scalable workbook that provides an overview of Open Source WCM tools, with the ability to add additional requirements and/or vendors.
Enable process to consult clients towards an Open Source WCM tool that will meet their specific needs and priorities with minimal work required.
Take a snapshot of leaders in the Open Source WCM spectrum in order to have a basis to evaluate later releases and competing tools.

Summary Results

Assessment Strategy
Identified important WCM aspects and features
Created ranking guidelines
Individual product installation and assessment
Workbook completion and review

Product Overview - Alfresco

Background / Current State
Background
Alfresco was founded in 2005 by John Newton, co-founder of Documentum® and John Powell, former COO of Business Objects®.
Milestones
October 2005 – Alfresco Product Launch
May 2006 - Alfresco Enterprise Edition Goes 100% Open Source
March 2009 - launched Alfresco Enterprise 3.1.
Key Awards
EContent 100 Awards (2007,2008)
InfoWorld Bossie Award for Best of Open Source in Applications (2007,2008)
Current State
Community Alfresco Forge - http://forge.alfresco.com/
Hosted Projects: 186
Registered Users: 1,740
Alfresco Forum - http://forums.alfresco.com/en/
Total posts 57713
Total topics 16963
Total members 9369
Enterprise Support Option
Alfresco Enterprise Network
SLA -Gold or Platinum
Bug Tracking and Fixing
Issue Escalation
Upgrade Support

Architecture
Enterprise-scale, high integrity-repository
Modular, light-weight architecture
5X faster than commercial
Latest Standards: Sprint,
Hibernate, Lucene, JSF168,
JCR170, CMIS
Portal integration
Distributed architecture
High Availability

Results Summary – Base Scores

Content Creation, Management & Publishing
Content Creation & Management
Alfresco WCM supports creating, uploading and managing various type of contents.
XSD based web forms can be implemented to create structured XML contents which can be further rendered to various format such as html contents.
Import & Export : CIFS, WebDAV, ftp and Bulkloading function.
Alfresco WCM doesn’t provide spell and grammar check and content categorization function out of box.
Content Publishing
Alfresco WCM allows users to publish , un-publish and rollback to previous versions.
Contents can be automatically published to multiple servers based on launch dates .
Email and online notification can be added to workflow notifying users when contents are published or expired. However, Email and online notification are not subscription based.

Content Consumption, System Administration & Configuration
Content Consumption
Alfresco WCM doesn’t support Web 2.0 functions such as blog,Wiki threaded discussion, posting comments etc.
Web 2.0 functions are supported in Alfresco Share.
System Administration & Configuration
Admin can easily set up new web projects, add web forms, users, workflow and deployment servers to web projects.
Alfresco provides APIs to extend and add custom functions . In most cases, custom functions have to be manually deployed to the alfresco.
Alfresco doesn’t provides the ability to configure navigational elements.

Technical
Overall Alfresco WCM is an open, scalable and extensible solution. It provides clustering and failover support, Web DAV support, CIFS support, LDAP support, provides both hot/cold backup and restore support.
It is based on Java, built on Sprint, Hibernate, Lucene, supports JSF168, JCR170, CMIS.

Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths
Extensible.
Scalable.
Decent versioning, rollback and publishing support.
Workflow based on JBPM can be easily customized.
Active community support.
Weaknesses
Out of box authoring UI is not user friendly. Alfresco doesn’t support in context editing.
Alfresco WCM doesn’t provide folder level and document level security. Web project users are able to see all contents within the same web project.
Contents can not be easily shared across Alfresco DM and Alfresco WCM. Alfresco WCM isn’t able to fully leverage Alfresco DM’s strength.

Suitability
Suitable for:
Medium scale web site with thousands pages.
Requires integration with J2EE applications.
Requires integration with LDAP and Database.
Requires customized workflow and deployment processes.
Site structure is simple, consistent and static.
Not suitable for:
Content authors with limited html knowledge.
Site requires multi-level security.
Requires dynamic contents support with limited development resource.

Product Overview - Drupal

Background
Started by Dries Buytaert in 2000
Evolved from version 1.0 to the current version, 6.9
Acquia offers an enterprise edition including support with additional modules
Solid roadmap that reaches goals and gets the community involved
Current official core release is 6.10 with Acquia Drupal 1.2.6
Current State
Acquia hosts enterprise sites. Their support options include all of the following at the enterprise level:
Support (24/7 helpdesk)
Maintenance
DBA work
The Drupal community is extensive, far reaching and large enough that it’s difficult to tell exactly how far it extends
The community is very organized in both core releases and bigger third-party extensions - there are some smaller add-ons that are still ad-hoc
Community expects dedicated participation from contributors

Architecture
Works with Apache 1.3 or Apache 2.x hosted on UNIX/Linux, OS X, or Windows.
Drupal core works using IIS 5, 6, or 7 if PHP is configured correctly (in view of Microsoft's support lifecycle it is suggested that IIS 6 or IIS 7 is used).
Maintains a group of core “modules” - a group of third party extensions.
Does not have native SSL support but is easily extendable to support SSL.
Drupal is a mix between a social publishing system and a traditional WCMS.

Built-in ‘theming’.
“ Blocks” create modular components.
Modules allow easy third-party integration and maintenance.
Triggers can be defined to manage content or send notifications.
Great blog/wiki architecture built-in and extendable.
Content Publishing
Easily integrated language support.
Many types of content export are built-in with additional support via community modules.
Triggers can be used to publish/unpublish content.

Content Creation, Management and Publishing (Sample)

Content Consumption
Strong as far as notifications and triggers are concerned.
No native ability to deploy contents to multiple web servers.
Unintuitive publishing workflow.
Supports the ability for content to be in multiple states (i.e. publishing, unpublished, etc).
Strong built-in support for flexible navigational/menu/tab components.
Provides an admin tool for monitoring/enabling/disabling modules.
Huge number of community supported third-party modules available.
Provides good OOTB logging and notifications.

System Administration & Configuration (Sample)

Technical
Provides an OOTB internal caching mechanism.
Runs on PHP and supports most major backend systems including Apache, IIS, MySQL, SQL, and Oracle.
Clustering and failover support can be tricky and requires both a third-party module and serious configuration (though no extra coding necessarily).
Content is stored in a database and is easily backed up and restored.

Strengths
250k+ members in the community.
Great for building quick social networking and social media sites.
Can handle high amounts of traffic.
Easily customizable.
Weaknesses
Would not work well for typical eCommerce or CMS-based sites without heavy customization.
Deployment to multiple web servers requires coding customizations.

Suitability
Suitable for:
Wiki or blog based sites.
Social Media.
Small eCommerce businesses.
Most sites with high traffic demands.
Rapid development of microsites.
Not suitable for:
High volume eCommerce platforms.
Complex workflow requirements.
Large amounts of clustering.
Extensive failover support requirements.

Product Overview - Joomla!

Background
Joomla! was established in 2005 as a fork from Mambo. Joomla is a Romanization of an Arabic word meaning “all together.”
Joomla! adopts the GNU GPL v2 license.
Joomla! was the runner-up for Packt Publishing’s Best Overall Open Source CMS and Best PHP Open Source CMS in 2008 and winner of Best PHP Open Source CMS in 2007.
Current State
Version 1.5.10 is the current stable release.
Joomla! is built and supported by a Core Team and community Working Groups.
To date, 59 user groups are registered within the community. As of July 2008, the Joomla! forums have 255,000 registered members posting across 40 languages.
Substantial help/tutorial documentation, API wiki pages, and blogs/articles are available within the Help Site, Documentation Site, and Developer Network areas of the Joomla! homepage.

Architecture
Joomla! is built upon the PHP (4.3.10, 5.2+) scripting language and runs on Apache Web Server (1.3, 2.x+) and Microsoft IIS (6, 7). To date, Joomla! only supports the MySQL database (3.23 – 4.1.x+).
Joomla! is extended by plugins that enhance data, modules that enhance presentation, and a template engine.
Joomla! include several powerful system features out of the box such as Search, Syndication, Taxonomy/Categorization, Navigation management (menus/breadcrumbs), and support for XML-RPC.

Screenshots

Joomla! has a nearly complete set of content creation and management features including WYSIWYG editing, content preview, access control for authorship, categorization, file management, and versioning.
Joomla! lost points for requiring an extension to build forms and lacking WebDAV support.
Content Publishing
Content in Joomla! can be published automatically, expired automatically, remain unpublished, and deployed to multiple web servers.
Third party extensions are required for workflow and notification of content modification.

Content Consumption
Joomla! provides PDF and print views of content out-of-the-box and supports internationalized content.
Popular and well-supported extensions support all common community/social features such as wikis, blogs, topical discussion threads, voting, user profiles, chat, and social network integration.
Joomla!’s administration interface is well organized and provides administrators with all expected configuration options for managing users, media, extensions, themes, SEO, navigation, upgrading, and logging.
Joomla! lost points for lacking automatic update notification.

Technical
Joomla! runs on both Apache and IIS along side of PHP. Joomla! is currently reliant on MySQL. Joomla! features caching and cache control mechanisms out-of-the-box.
Maintenance mode is available in the system.
Files can be managed through FTP or the web-based File Management system, but not through WebDAV.
Authentication via LDAP, OpenID, and Gmail.
Remote Procedure Call support to the API via HTTP and XML enable web service style integration.

Strengths
Joomla! offers sophisticated content management features with many key Enterprise ready features out of the box.
The administration interface is elegant and impressive compared to other popular Open Source offerings.
The community is active, energetic, and steadily growing. Community activity and User Groups reflect the momentum of Joomla! adoption.
Dozens of published books on Joomla! usage and development available for purchase, some of which are regularly stocked at most retail bookstores.
Weaknesses
Joomla! only supports MySQL.
There is no stand-out primary provider of commercial support services for Joomla!
Joomla! lacks corporate sponsorship, but is governed by the board of directors of a not-for-profit organization, Open Source Matters Inc. ( http://www.opensourcematters.org ).

Suitability
Suitable for:
Public facing and intranet websites naturally structured around articles.
Social/Community sites and portals.
Pages contributed to and managed by dozens of content authors.
Not suitable for:
Websites with very complex customization needs.
Websites requiring high volume transaction handling.

Product Overview - Magnolia

Background
Magnolia 4.0 was released in March of 2009, the current release is Magnolia 4.1.
In October 2008, JBoss.org chose Magnolia as the platform to support its website infrastructure.
Current State
Magnolia International Ltd. Provides the following services:
Support
Consulting
Training
Migration.
The Magnolia Wiki can be found here: http://wiki.magnolia-cms.com/display/WIKI/Home.
The Wiki has regular contributions from the vendor and open source community, discussing topics ranging from Administration and Development to Integrations and Troubleshooting.

Architecture
Magnolia is based on Java and the Java Content Repository (JCR) JSR-170 standard, and provides abstract classes for users to extend to create custom modules.
Magnolia has a number of add-on modules, including Enterprise level modules supporting LDAP, Form building and Weblogic and Websphere.
There are also modules available to the open source community, including support for Polls, Forums, and Workflows, and third-party modules including support for frameworks such as Spring MVC and Struts 1.1.
Due to the hierarchical nature of the JCR, there limited ability for dynamic content beyond what the developers can code into components and templates.
The authoring dialogs are based on static structures and offer no dynamic ability without customization.

Authoring dialogs
Authoring environment
User management
Hierarchical structure
Content Publishing
Content publishing
Notifications
WAR deployment

Content Consumption
Delivery of content in alternate formats.
Modules provide Wiki and Forum capabilities.
No user to user socialization capabilities.
Language support.
Java API for JSP coding and abstract classes for developing modules.
Modules for extending capabilities and functionality: http://wiki.magnolia-cms.com/display/WIKI/List+of+Magnolia+Modules .
Administration through web browser.
Configuration requires restart.

Technical
Internal caching of what is returned per request, cache cleared on activation, or configurable as a whole or per path.
Since it is a Deployable WAR file, only need a webserver supporting J2EE.
Backup and Restore through packages.
No WebDAV or FTP support.
No recorded metrics for concurrent users, performance in authoring.

Strengths
Hierarchy allows for easy understanding and control of the website structure.
Java based, JSR-170, platform independent.
User Configuration is easy to understand, the Access Control Lists and Role configuration allows for control over access to tools and hierarchy, as well as page level content.
Weaknesses
Code push to publish or other author instances requires packaging or copying of files from the webapp.
Doesn’t support dynamic content well, depends on coding of template or component.
Limited out of the box page components.

Suitability
Suitable for:
Deployments of multiple authors and users, with distinct and separate responsibilities.
Sites with authors of limited technical knowledge and/or ability.
Sites needing to integrate with J2EE applications.
Not suitable for:
Sites requiring low technical maintenance.
New template development without coding.
Quick and easy deployment and configuration.

Conclusions

Interpretations and Conclusions
Although Drupal ranked highest among the tools chosen, the margin was slim and the assessment results shown here are not weighted by importance factors which vary between organizations.
The incumbent leaders in Open Source WCM systems offer compelling features and Enterprise-ready polish.
Support is often a requirement and expectation for large organizations and some Open Source WCM tools do indeed provide a respectable level of support along with an Enterprise licensing tier.
The major challenges for the further adoption of Open Source WCM software in the Enterprise market involve education around licensing, support, maturity, and stability. When considering Open Source solutions, these topics often engender uncertainty, at best, and misinformation at worst.

Questions?

Thank You!

http://localhost	11
http://www.magnolia-cms.com	7
http://www.slideshare.net	5
http://author.magnolia-cms.com	1

Joomla Chicago Meeting July, 2009: CMS CageMatch II

by John Coonen

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

4 Embeds 24

Statistics

Joomla Chicago Meeting July, 2009: CMS CageMatch II Presentation Transcript