iPhone, CMIS, and Amazon EC2 - Tech Talk Live with Alfresco

iPhone native App, CMIS and the Cloud
Mike Mahon, President, mike@ziaconsulting.com
Mike Muller, Director, Software Consulting, mike.muller@ziaconsulting.com
10/30/09
www.ziaconsulting.com
303.443.4004 x203

Who is Zia?
A firm with deep technical expertise and strategic insight, dedicated providing customers with the following benefits:
Benefits
Zia’s deep technical expertise and strategic insight, coupled with our Agile software methodology, provide numerous benefits to our customers:

Achieve ROI by delivering improved operational efficiencies
Boost productivity by creating collaborative work environments
Maintain access and control of information through the enterprise
Allow employees to find the information they need, when they need it
Increase end-user adoption
Agile training by using Zia methodology and Rally tools

Professional Qualifications

Highly-experienced senior staff consisting of Business Analysts, Enterprise Architects, Software Engineers and Data Architects
Alfresco Professional Services Partner

Our Partners
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Service Offerings
Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
An ECM is a cultivation of knowledge -- one of the most valuable assets to any organization. A proper ECM system ensures content has integrity through proper version control, allows producers to easily create content and publish it to a variety of mediums, and it automates processes,streamlining the review, approval and distribution of content across an organization. Zia's ECM offerings provide all of these benefits, and more, in a manner tailored to the client's business needs.
Enterprise 2.0 Solutions
The focus of technology should always be on people. Zia enables our customers to gain tremendous competitive advantage by allowing their team to collaborate more effectively, respond more quickly to changes, and make better decisions. Adopters of Enterprise 2.0 solutions will find they have a more productive, engaged and informed team.
Data Management
Organizations have increasing demand for accessibility to information. It is critical to guarantee data security, consistency, and timeliness, while providing that data access. Zia’s expertise in data management helps organizations implement effective data governance strategies. This governance is the key to effective data management and success.
Zia’s Agile Solution Methodology
At its heart, our Agile-based methodology is centered on a close collaborative approach to maximizing value for our customers. Constant client communication is necessary to ensure that each development iteration addresses features with the highest business value, even if those features were unknown at the launch of the project.

What is the project?
Zia has developed an app that allows mobile access to an Alfresco document repository. This application runs against the most recent Alfresco releases; no additional software needs to be installed on the servers and no configuration of Alfresco is required.
 It is configured by default to run against an Alfresco instance running in the Cloud. All of the calls to Alfresco to authenticate and pull content are utilizing Alfresco’s CMIS API.
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Why did we do this project?

Interest in the platform
Contribute back to the community
Great learning opportunity

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5

Why use the Cloud?

Reduced cost compared to dedicated server
XFS and Amazon EBS snapshots allow nearly instant online backups
http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=1663
Duplicate instances quickly and easily
Grow repository space quickly and easily
Excellent public demo site for the iPhone app

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Why CMIS?

Lightweight
Standards-based
Interoperable

For more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_Management_Interoperability_Services
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/CMIS
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Demo
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8

Benefits of a Native App

Offline operation
Usability and performance
Push notification

Required Services

Get sites
Get children
Get content
Search

Get Sites
alfresco/service/api/sites?format=json
[
{
"url" : "/alfresco/service/api/sites/clients",
"sitePreset" : "site-dashboard",
"shortName" : "clients",
"title" : "Consulting",
"description" : "Zia Consulting client focused site. Contains materials on proposal...",
"node" : "/alfresco/service/api/node/workspace/SpacesStore/65be3462-ddb7-415f-a263-d7aca36953ee",
"tagScope" : "/alfresco/service/api/tagscopes/workspace/SpacesStore/65be3462-ddb7-415f-a263-d7aca36953ee",
"isPublic" : false,
"visibility" : "PRIVATE",
"siteManagers" : ["mmahon", "pjh", "bwavell", "pmyers", "jbarry"]
},
{
"url" : "/alfresco/service/api/sites/intranet",
"sitePreset" : "site-dashboard",
"shortName" : "intranet",
...

Get Children
alfresco/service/api/node/workspace/SpacesStore/<GUID>/children
<feed>
...
<entry>
<author><name>pmahon</name></author>
<content>54186503-ed0c-4037-98d4-d071fbe8368e</content>
<id>urn:uuid:54186503-ed0c-4037-98d4-d071fbe8368e</id>
<link rel="cmis-type" href="http://foo.bar.com:80/alfresco/service/type/folder"/>
<link rel="cmis-repository" href="http://foo.bar.com:80/alfresco/service/api/repository"/>
…
<published>2009-06-30T23:33:35.564Z</published>
<summary></summary>
<title>blog</title>
<updated>2009-06-30T23:33:35.578Z</updated>
<cmis:object>
<cmis:properties>
<cmis:propertyStringcmis:name="LastModifiedBy"><cmis:value>pmahon</cmis:value></cmis:propertyString>
<cmis:propertyDateTimecmis:name="LastModificationDate"><cmis:value>2009-06-30T23:33:35.578Z</cmis:value>
</cmis:propertyDateTime>
...
</cmis:properties>
</cmis:object>
<cmis:terminator/>
<app:edited>2009-06-30T23:33:35.578Z</app:edited>
<alf:icon>http://foo.bar.com:80/alfresco/images/icons/space-icon-default-16.gif</alf:icon>
</entry>
...
</feed>

Get Content
alfresco/service/api/node/workspace/SpacesStore/<guid>/filename.ext
<feed>
...
<entry>
<author><name>mmahon</name></author>
<content type="application/msword" src="http://foo.bar.com:80/alfresco/service/api/node/workspace/SpacesStore/4cf3b9de-e492-4374-b0c5-b9a48661b011/content.doc"/>
<id>urn:uuid:4cf3b9de-e492-4374-b0c5-b9a48661b011</id>
<link rel="self" href="http://foo.bar.com:80/alfresco/service/api/node/workspace/SpacesStore/4cf3b9de-e492-4374-b0c5-b9a48661b011"/>
...
<link rel="repository" href="http://foo.bar.com:80/alfresco/service/api/repository"/>
<summary></summary>
<title>mmuller_bio.doc</title>
<cmis:object>
<cmis:properties>
<cmis:propertyStringcmis:name="BaseType"><cmis:value>document</cmis:value></cmis:propertyString>
...
<cmis:propertyIdcmis:name="ObjectTypeId"><cmis:value>document</cmis:value></cmis:propertyId>
</cmis:properties>
</cmis:object>
<cmis:terminator/>
<alf:icon>http://foo.bar.com:80/alfresco/images/filetypes/doc.gif</alf:icon>
</entry>
...
</feed>

Search
alfresco/service/search/keyword.atom?q=<pattern>&p=1&c=<count>
<feed>
...
<entry>
<title>WBS-django-conversion.xls</title>
<link rel="alternate" href="http://foo.bar.com:80/alfresco/service/api/node/content/workspace/SpacesStore/986b162e-0867-4a7b-9f4f-0e3837cdc97b/WBS-django-conversion.xls"/>
...
<icon>http://foo.bar.com:80/alfresco/images/filetypes/xls.gif</icon>
<id>urn:uuid:986b162e-0867-4a7b-9f4f-0e3837cdc97b</id>
<alf:noderef>workspace://SpacesStore/986b162e-0867-4a7b-9f4f-0e3837cdc97b</alf:noderef>
<summary></summary>
<author>
<name>mmahon</name>
</author>
<relevance:score>0.012</relevance:score>
</entry>
...
</feed>

CMIS

Content Mgmt Interoperability Services
Provides abstract web API to access CMS
Specification not finalized
SOAP and REST
REST API based on AtomPub

CMIS Search

New query language: CQL
Based on SQL 92
Each content type is a table
Each property is a column

select Title, Description from document
where LastModifiedBy = ‘mmuller’

CMIS Search Request
alfresco/service/api/query
This is the body of the POST request
(not the response)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<query>
<statement>select score() as Relevance, ContentStreamLength from Document where contains(‘pancakes')</statement>
<pageSize>20</pageSize>
</query>

pageSize must be > 0
Content-Type = application/cmisquery+xml
namespace is inconsistent

CMIS Search Response
<feed>
...
<entry>
<content type="application/vnd.excel" src="http://foo.bar.com:80/alfresco/service/api/node/workspace/SpacesStore/986b162e-0867-4a7b-9f4f-0e3837cdc97b/content.xls"/>
<id>urn:uuid:986b162e-0867-4a7b-9f4f-0e3837cdc97b</id>
...
<title>WBS-django-conversion.xls</title>
<cmis:object>
<cmis:properties>
<cmis:propertyStringcmis:name="BaseType"><cmis:value>document</cmis:value></cmis:propertyString>
<cmis:propertyDecimalcmis:name="Relevance"><cmis:value>0.0256947092711926</cmis:value></cmis:propertyDecimal>
<cmis:propertyIntegercmis:name="ContentStreamLength"><cmis:value>18944</cmis:value></cmis:propertyInteger>
</cmis:properties>
</cmis:object>
<cmis:terminator/>
<alf:icon>http://foo.bar.com:80/alfresco/images/filetypes/xls.gif</alf:icon>
</entry>
...
</feed>
THIS is the response

CMIS Get Sites
select f.Name from folder as f where f.ObjectTypeId = 'F/st_site'
<feed>
...
<entry>
<content>977a5305-6800-4825-ade3-73e53e032635</content>
<id>urn:uuid:977a5305-6800-4825-ade3-73e53e032635</id>
...
<title>newclienttemplate</title>
<cmis:object>
<cmis:properties>
<cmis:propertyStringcmis:name="BaseType"><cmis:value>folder</cmis:value></cmis:propertyString>
<cmis:propertyStringcmis:name="f.Name"><cmis:value>newclienttemplate</cmis:value></cmis:propertyString>
</cmis:properties>
</cmis:object>
<cmis:terminator/>
</entry>
…
</feed>

CMIS Get Sites
How do I get the description?

Get Children
alfresco/service/api/node/workspace/SpacesStore/<GUID>/children
<feed>
...
<entry>
<author><name>pmahon</name></author>
<content>54186503-ed0c-4037-98d4-d071fbe8368e</content>
<id>urn:uuid:54186503-ed0c-4037-98d4-d071fbe8368e</id>
<link rel="cmis-type" href="http://foo.bar.com:80/alfresco/service/api/type/folder"/>
<link rel="cmis-repository" href="http://foo.bar.com:80/alfresco/service/api/repository"/>
...
<summary></summary>
<title>blog</title>
<cmis:object>
<cmis:properties>
<cmis:propertyStringcmis:name="LastModifiedBy">
<cmis:value>pmahon</cmis:value>
</cmis:propertyString>
<cmis:propertyDateTimecmis:name="LastModificationDate">
<cmis:value>2009-06-30T23:33:35.578Z</cmis:value>
</cmis:propertyDateTime>
...
</cmis:properties>
</cmis:object>
<cmis:terminator/>
</entry>
...
</feed>
It was CMIS already!

Next Steps