A Standard API for Content Management, JSR 170

JSR 170 is the proposed java API for content management, much like JDBC is the standard API for database access. This is an interesting concept from a DCTM perspective.

Traditional business strategists would say that adoption of open standards is not necessarily in the best interest of large, market leaders such as DCTM. Why allow the little guys to conform to spec and steal market share? The only win may be with the late adopters who need total interoperability with their other enterprise apps.
The CM world is still fragmented, supporting a standard may help consolidate it, but DCTM wants to avoid CMS from becoming a commodity for as long as possible. On the other hand, Open Text’s purchase of Hummingbird, and IBM acquiring Filenet may signal that the market is consolidating.

Technically, this would require DCTM to write adapters to conform to JSR 170. Without a doubt, this api will only contain a subset of the functionality that is exposed through DCTM’s DFC. I really can’t see DCTM programmers working with an API where they couldn’t execute the unique functionality within ECS (a publish of the data dictionary?).

But, I can see huge benefits for interoperability where a company like BEA writes adapters for talking to any standard JSR170 CMS, and adding value through an enterprise service bus or service orchestration. This would be a huge win, and the large app servers love to support new connectors and JSRs. Their support (and subsequently their client’s insistence) could be the push that forces business like DCTM to conform.

-Fabian Lee

Locked-down vs Free-form folder structure

I have encountered this question on every project I have been involved in.  On one hand, having a locked down folder structure promotes standard navigation and storage.  On the other hand, coming up with a folder structure template that everyone will understand and use is quite difficult.

On one project I was on, we convened a “governance committee” of about 10-15 people from the different business units to come up with a standard folder structure for the entire company.  It took us about four 2 hr sessions to get to create a template structure.  Each of the reps then presented the template to structure to his/her business unit.  Let me say that, this was not the end of it.  We had to have another 2-3 meetings to resolve naming schemes and whether we should add some additional sub-layers.

In the end, the governance committee agree that we would only impose structure at tier 1-3 levels.  Anything below Tier 3, would be free form.  A good software design usually requires input from all types of users and ultimately a solution will contain compromises between different group.