1.
The Content Management
Interoperability Services (CMIS)
Standard
What is it and Where is it Going?
Saravanan Rajan Laurence Hart
Vice President, CM Pros Chair, CMIS Group, CM Pros
CTO, COSI Consulting Director, Washington Consulting, Inc.
saravanan@cmprofessionals.org lhart@cmprofessionals.org

2.
Overview
• Introduction
• What is the CMIS Standard?
• How CMIS can be used
• Benefits of CMIS
• Industry support
• Future of CMIS

3.
Thanks to Our Host -
Developers of
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4.
About CM Pros
• Helps over 15,000 associate members all over the
world to enhance their knowledge and expertise
• Provides a collaborative community of practice
advancing the field of content management
• Enhances the knowledge and expertise of our
community by sharing practices, providing
leadership and connecting members
• Offers online and offline opportunities to interact
with members through our website, LinkedIn,
webinars, events and seminars
• http://www.cmprofessionals.org/

5.
You’ve probably heard of CMIS
Content Defines a domain model
and set of bindings, such
Management
as Web Service and
Interoperability REST/Atom, that can be
Services used by applications to
work with one or more
Content Management
repositories/systems.

6.
Basic History
• 2005 – iECM Committee begins discussing need for a new standard
– ODMA: Desktop dependent
– WebDAV: Limited capability
– Java Content Repository: Technology specific, API-base
• 2006 – EMC, IBM, and Microsoft leave the iECM Committee and
begin developing CMIS
• 2008 – Initial proposal drafted by EMC, IBM & Microsoft
– Reviewed by Alfresco, Open Text, Oracle, SAP
– Draft was unveiled and released to OASIS
• 2008 – The OASIS CMIS Technical Committee formed
• 2009 – CMIS 1.0 released for public comment
• 2010 – CMIS became an official standard

7.
The Hype
No
More
Silos!!!

8.
What Does It Really Mean?

9.
Three Fundamental Use Cases
• Repository to Repository
• Application to Repository
• Federated Repository

10.
Repository to Repository
There are times you want to talk directly
between content repositories
• Publish a document from one system into
another
• Manage records from one centralized system

11.
CMIS in a Publishing System
Publishing:
• Whitepapers
• Official Guidelines
• Reports
3) Document is
1) Create a Content: integrated into
document. • XML website and
• PDF published.
CMIS 2) Publish Document CMIS
Content Content
Repository Interface Interface Repository
to WCM System.

12.
Application to Repository
• Sharing Content across applications
• Collaboration/Enterprise 2.0 Applications
– SharePoint as an interface, not repository
– Content in collaborative platorms
• Enterprise Software Applications
• Generic Content Management Applications
• Composite Content Applications (CCAs)

13.
Composite Content Applications
• What is a CCA?
– Formerly known as CEVA
– Electronic Medical Records
– Case Management System
– Correspondence Tracking System
• Vendors with domain expertise build the
applications with the business rules and plug
into an Content Management System

14.
In all cases, it is using the best
content application for the job
against a shared Content
Management System...
…not shuffling content between
systems

15.
Instead of Multiple Repositories
Resumes Proposals
HR System: CRM System:
Collaboration System:
Resumes, Proposals,
Proposal, Deliverables
Offer Letters Resumes
HR Content CRM Content Project Content
Repository Repository Repository

16.
You Can Manage One
CRM System:
Proposals, Collaboration
HR System: System: Proposal,
Resumes
Resumes, Offer Deliverables
Letters
CMIS
Interface
Content
Repository

17.
Federated Repository
Interacting with multiple repositories as one repository
Search Manage
Content Content Content Content
Repository Repository Repository Repository

18.
AIIM iECM’s CMIS Demo
1. User conducts search
2. Federator sends request out
3. Repositories execute search and return results
4. Federator merges results
5. User acts on results
iECM CMIS Search Federator
(California, US)
CMIS CMIS CMIS CMIS CMIS
Interface Interface Interface Interface Interface
Alfresco Documentum Nuxeo IBM eXo
Repository Repository Repository Repository Repository
(United Kingdom) (Amazon Cloud) (France) (Amazon Cloud) (Eastern Europe)

19.
Industry Support
• Large Content Management vendor support base
– Support: IBM, EMC, Open Text, Microsoft, and Alfresco
– Missing (so far): Hyland and Autonomy
• Microsoft support
– SharePoint 2010 as both a repository and application
– Released as part of SharePoint Administrator Toolkit
• Open Source Content Management support
– Chemistry project provided open source implementation
– All supporters of previous Java Content Repository
standard will be able to claim CMIS compliance
• Next step is application builders

20.
Future of CMIS
• Version 1.1
– Type Mutability
– Browser binding (JSON)
• Version 2.0
– Increased Records Management support
– Support for Semantic functionality
– Ability to have domain models

21.
Getting Involved
• CM Pros is working to improve CMIS
– Educate the Content Management world
– Collect real-world experiences
– Suggest areas for improvement
• Interested in joining the CM Pros CMIS Group?
– Contact Laurence Hart
– Email: lhart@cmprofessionals.org
– Twitter: piewords

22.
Summary
• Content Management Interoperability Services
– Official OASIS standard now
– Planned evolution to stay relevant
• Defines Content Management Domain Model
– Content model the same across all
bindings/implementations
– Web Services and Atom bindings are ways to access model,
not defining part of standard
• CMIS is not the lowest common denominator
– Defines functionality that is needed
– Some parts are optional to provide for a greater ecosystem
• It is in use now

23.
More Information
• OASIS CMIS Technical Committee
– http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=cmis
• Apache Chemistry Incubator
– http://incubator.apache.org/projects/chemistry.html
• CMIS Developer Resources
– http://www.cmisdev.org/cmis/
• CMIS SQL Details
– http://www.open-source-ecm.com/2009/08/cmis-tutorial-cmis-sql.html

24.
Thank You
Laurence Hart
http://wordofpie.com
@piewords

25.
About the Speaker
Laurence Hart is a Director of Technology Solutions for
Washington Consulting, Inc. and the author of the blog
"Word of Pie". Over his 15+ years in the Information
Management industry, he has led a wide-range of efforts
including content digitization, Records Management,
BPM, and Collaboration for both the commercial and
public sectors. Recently, Laurence has been focused on
helping organizations in assessing, defining, and building
their Information and Content Management strategies.
As an active member of AIIM and the Chair of the CM
Pros CMIS Group, Laurence has focused on educating the
Content Management industry on the standards needed
for successful growth.