In my previous post, I mentioned that D6 was shipping. I then added a few notes. After reading a comment from James on his links for September 1, I decided to add a few details and explain some things for those unfamiliar with D6 and Documentum’s release practices.
Why a 25% increase?
Simple. Now that the core engine consists of Java and not C++ libraries, Documentum must run inside an Application Server. [Edit: 6 Sept 2007: This detail appears to be a little off from recent evidence, my apologies. More details to come as to how much impact this has on the Content Server itself.] To accomplish this on the scale that they need, D6 will redistribute BEA’s WebLogic 9.2, embedded as part of the Content Server. The extra 25% is due to this inclusion.
Keep in mind that the 25% is just a swag number that I was given for sizing a new D6 installation that one of my clients is planning. I expect the truth to be 10-30% based upon the usage profile for each installation.
They haven’t had a jump like this in the past few releases the Content Server and I don’t anticipate another jump like this going forward.
The Sizing Spreadsheet
This usually is published a few weeks after each release. From my understanding, it is nearing completion. It is just being tweaked and having the documentation for it updated. This is an easy tool that allows people to enter the type and amount of content, user count, and usage profiles into the respective fields. From there, you can play with different hardware configurations to determine the optimal setup.
With each Service Pack, this will become more and more accurate. I expect the Indexer and Web Application Server estimations to be fairly accurate. The Content Server will probably be few percentage points higher than necessary until more metrics from the wild are collected.
As to having something that actually collects the information live, like a Service Management Console, that would be nice. There is better reporting in D6, but not to the extent that we need. However, one should never complain when a vendor takes the first step on a journey. You just need to make sure that they acknowledge that there is more work to do.
Word of Pie 
The core ECS has not been rewritten in Java. It will continue to be written in c/c++ and compiled natively for each platform. The dmcl client is what is changing. Instead of using a native library for communication back to the server (dll, so), it will instead use a pure java library.
This is the same distinction in architecture as that between a type II and type IV JDBC driver:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JDBC_driver
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Thanks Fabian. You may well be correct. It isn’t what was discribed to me by some of EMC’s Architects, but I could have misinterpreted. We’ll know soon.
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Now that D6 is released, you can see that there are separate content server downloads for each OS. This would lead me to believe that the core binaries are still OS specific.
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Johnny, your timing the last 24 hours is incredible. You scoop me on the download site and then post this comment after I started drafting a post containing my retraction.
Until we install, I we won’t know 100%, but I am conceding the point as the evidence points that way, and as I look back on my conversations, many of the examples in my discussions were more Web Application based.
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