Open Source and Open Standards for Information and Records Managers

Open Source and Open Standards:
The Next Generation of Enterprise
Content Management?
ARMA - Information Management Symposium
Toronto - June 1, 2011

Cheryl McKinnon
Founder/President Candy Strategies Inc.
Cheryl@CandyStrategies.com www.candystrategies.com
@CherylMcKinnon

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Open Standards are
Essential to ECM


Open Standards in ECM
• Information Management professionals
who are serious about digital preservation
in today’s knowledge economy need to be
diligent

• Preservation

• Metadata

• Interoperability and Portability


What About Preservation?
• How do we ensure this era of Information
Overload doesn’t become the Dark Ages 2.0?

• Non-vendor controlled ﬁle formats

• Independent from operating systems or
hardware platforms

• Can live outside of digital rights lockdown
for appropriate preservation and
educational uses


Open Standards for Preservation

• A long way to go...but:

• PDF/A and ODF are a start

• Public sector has lead the charge in this
area

• PDF/A an ISO Standard

• Ability to mandate and encourage open
standards adoption

Open Standards for Metadata
• Dublin Core
• Wide adoption for these standard metadata
elements in content management and
library systems

• XML
• W3C consortium

• Machine and Human Readable textual data
format


Open Standards for Interoperability
• CMIS (Content Management
Interoperability Services)

• OASIS managed with active
participation from AIIM

• OpenSocial

• Interoperability across collaboration
and social network products

• “Gadget” metaphor inspired by
Google

• An Open API not a formal standard

Open Source is Changing
the Information
Management Industry


What is Open Source?
• Deﬁnition emerged 1998 - with a new model of software
development and release - Mozilla (Netscape Navigator)

• Roots back to 1980s - Free Software Foundation

• Practices rooted in development that evolved into the internet

• 1960s/70s - early example of open, participatory software
development

• 1998 - Founding of Open Software Initiative

• consistent terminology, sanctioned software license
agreements, deﬁnitions and practices

• http://opensource.org/


What is Open Source?
• Simply?

• A way a software developer (a vendor or a community)
licenses and distributes its source code

• No charge for the software, availability of code,
welcomes contributions, no restrictions on how
software is used

• Variety of individual license agreements govern how it is
distributed or used inside other products.

• Examples: GPL, LGPL, Apache, BSD, Eclipse, others...


2010 Was a Turning Point
in ECM


CMIS: Vendors Playing
Nicely


Background

• Original Concept in 2006

• Kick off meeting - vendors,
academics, end-users

• Three vendors created their
own project

• Microsoft, EMC, IBM

Background

• Draft speciﬁcation
submitted to OASIS in 2008

• Strong participation and
collaboration among 19
vendors

• Final public draft in January
2010 with Ratiﬁcation on
May 4, 2010

• Planning for Next Version in
Progress - discussions
including Records
Management


CMIS: Why and What is it?
• Statement of Purpose

• Deﬁne a domain model that can be used by
applications to work with one or more Content
Management systems

• Data Model, Abstract Capabilities, Set of
Bindings

• Problem of “islands of incompatible
systems” making it difﬁcult for organizations
and application developers to integrate
content across and among systems


CMIS: Why and What?
• Use Cases for CMIS 1.0

• Collaborative Content Applications

• Portals Leveraging Content Management
Repositories

• Mashups

• Content Repository Search

• http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/
cmis/charter.php


CMIS: Why and What?
• Secondary Use Cases • Not in 1.0 Scope

• Content-centric
• RM and
Workﬂow and
BPM
Compliance

• Archival • DAM
Applications
• WCM
• Compound and
Virtual Documents
• Subscription
and Notiﬁcation
• Electronic and
Legal Discovery


CMIS 1.0
CMIS Client: Portal, Scan/Capture,
Content and Business Applications
Documents Metadata CRUD operations Filing
Folders Query : CMISQL
Checkin, Checkout Relations
Versions ACL Renditions

REST (AtomPub) or
SOAP

EMC/
IBM/Filenet Nuxeo Documen- Sharepoint Alfresco ...
tum


Removing the Stigma from
“Silo”


Harvesting the Content Silos
• Finding the common ground across
Content Management Repositories

• Technical Use Cases

• Federated Repositories

• Repository to Repository

• Application to Repository

• http://www.slideshare.net/
pie1120/the-point-of-the-
content-interoperability-
services-cmis-standard



• Federated Repositories

• Ability to use and consume content across
multiple repositories

• Appears to end user as one cohesive system

• Ability to build single UI to access content in
across multiple repositories - entirely
different ECM products


• Repository to Repository

• Publish a document from one repository to another

• Example: a document in an ECM system published
to a WCM upon approval

• Manage corporate records from one centralized
repository

• Access business records from multiple document
repositories in one records system for consistent
retention, disposition



• Application to Repository

• Use and consume managed content
across other line of business applications

• ERP, CRM, case management systems,
collaboration tools

• Let content ﬂow across its natural
horizontal business lifecycle


The Problem isn’t “Vendor
Lock-in”

It’s “Content Lock-in”


Lowest Common Denominator or
Highest Common Ground?
• CMIS Basics

• Object Types

• Documents, Folders,
Relationships, Policies

• Each object has an
object identity, properties

• Objects may an access
control list, a content
stream or rendition

Lowest Common Denominator or
Highest Common Ground?

• Versioning of Documents

• CMIS Query and Discovery
Services

• Navigation Services

• Multi-Filing Services


ECM: Platforms and Suites


ECM Becomes a Platform for
Content Applications
• CMIS opens the door to meaningful
consumption of content across business
processes

• Fast Integrations

• Generic deployments of basic document
management often don’t meet business
requirements

• Compliance cudgel often doesn’t work

• Productivity is back on the front-burner

Content Applications
• Vendors with cohesive platforms may be
able to be most creative with CMIS

• ECM vendors will need to differentiate in
new ways

• Suite vendors that assembled portfolio via
acquisition will take longer to take full
advantage of CMIS

• Inconsistent architectures and
integrations

Content Applications - Mobile
• Content Management Goes
Mobile

• Android CMIS Browser

• Browse CMIS repository

• View Documents

• Email Documents

• Search

• View Document Properties

http://code.google.com/p/android-cmis-browser/

Content Applications - Web
• Content Engine
behind WCM /
Portal Systems

• Drupal

• Liferay

• Nuxeo

• Alfresco

• eXo

• ....More

Content Applications - Process
• Business
Process
Management

• Access
content
stored in
ECM
repositories
via CMIS

• BonitaSoft


Why It Matters


Standards = Efﬁciency


Transporting the Digital Goods

• Line of Business and ECM Applications carry business
content

• Goods and Services are bought, sold and contracted
electronically

• Interoperable systems (ERP, WCM, eCommerce, BPM
and Workﬂow, ECM) need to let electronic content
move across business processes

• Reluctance to adopt basic Document Management
interoperability standards is a repeat of the Rail Gauge
Debates of the 1800s


How Does Open Source
Help Shape the Future of
Information Management?


Beneﬁts from Open Source

• Organizations Can Begin their Information
Management Project

• Start Testing, Prototyping without Signiﬁcant
Financial Investment

• Lingering Perception of the Hobbyist or Part Time
Developer is Ready for the History Books

• Mature Products, Strong Vendor Support Backing



• Community Strength for Knowledge Sharing and
Quick Responses

• Enterprise 2.0 in Action

• Organizations can Take Back Control of their Own
ECM Roadmaps

• Access to code, marketplaces, module exchange
with peers, partners or supply chain


• Brings ECM and Information Management to
organizations of all sizes and budgets

• The Web opened the door to opportunities for
new and innovative companies to communicate
and do business globally

• Democratization of opportunity means
Democratization of risk

• ECM no longer available to only those
organizations with large IT budgets

Canada Is Lagging on Acceptance

• UK Government

• 2010 Cabinet Ofﬁce Memo on Open Source

• US Government - Department of Defense

• 2009 Memo from CIO on Open Source

• 2011 Lessons Learned Report


From Information Overload to
Dark Ages 2.0?

http://opensource.com/life/10/10/information-overload-dark-ages-20

Thank You
Questions?
ARMA
Information Management Symposium
Toronto - June 1, 2011

Cheryl McKinnon
Founder/President Candy Strategies Inc.
Cheryl@CandyStrategies.com www.candystrategies.com
@CherylMcKinnon


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