EMC World 2010: DFS Real World Examples & Best Practices

This is the third year in a row at this session.  Mike (MT) Mohen is a smart guy who really knows what it take to make DFS work in the real world.  This stuff is also applicable to EMC’s CMIS implementation as it is built on top of DFS.

  • Enterprise Content Services (ECS) is the umbrella term for the SOA world of EMC
  • DFS is now part of the Content Server, not separate
  • Trends seen over the last year in the field re DFS
    • 50% of the solutions include .Net
    • UCF.Net is projected for 6.7 (Early access program on ECN now)
    • SAML and Kerberos in demand
      • Kerberos for DFS in 6.6, requires Content Server on 6.6
      • (Heard same for MyDocumentum for SharePoint, but not across board)
    • More demand for XA, JTA based transaction support
  • Content Transfer: HTTP, Base64, UCF, MTOM
  • Tester for DFS available online. Good for verifying that DFS is up and running.
  • Best Practice is to use the productivity layer and not straight WSDL calls. (concur)
  • DFS Extensions (DFSX) has extra features that aren’t part of the core product, also on ECN.
  • DFS is not optimized for performance (different needs for each environment). Need to use the test harness to measure, which is a JMeter extension.
  • Sizing spreadsheet is available for DFS.  Bug Mike (email address in presentation) for it if you don’t see the link here or on the ECN.
  • ESB doesn’t dramatically impact performance unless you are doing a lot on the ESB, which is a non-DFS impact
  • Security (Identity Management) is a challenge among difference applications but can be done.
  • Built a DFS-based explorer that looks and acts a like the old Desktop client
  • Has a flex application as well online
  • Use UCF for file transfer when using ACS/BOCS
  • QueryMaxResultCount does not default to –1, defaults to 100. –1 changes it to 500, not unlimited.  If going over 500, cache and cycle through results.  Mike never goes over 250 results personally.
  • Return DataPackage fore services that return resultsets.
  • When validating a returned DataPackage, check to see if NULL, can be non-NULL and still have no results.
  • DFS will allow you to create objects that violated the constraints, so check it out and validate the objects.  BUG!!!
  • Composer has a services catalog that works in Composer. Not new, just not widely known.  Separate installation, called DSCR.  Supports UDDI v2 standard

Attachments available on the ECN, including the presentation.  This year hopefully the code will stay online. I have a back-up plan just in case.

Okay, off to the Bloggers Lounge to relax, drink some espresso, power my laptop, and listen to the Joe Tucci (Papa EMC) keynote (something about how the the private cloud cometh) as it is basically in the same room.

Disclaimer

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but will not be otherwise indicated.

All statements about the future of EMC products and strategy are subject to change at any time due to a large variety of factors.

2 thoughts on “EMC World 2010: DFS Real World Examples & Best Practices”

  1. Chris Campbell says:

    Also mentioned was the use of UCF over MTOM. While there are cases where Base64 or MTOM may make sense, it’s better to stick with UCF when using DFS because of the way it handles files. When I get a chance (when I’m not waiting for the keynote to start) I’ll fill in some of my notes from this session as well.

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