EMC and the CMIS Standard

I talked a few weeks ago about the proposed CMIS standard.  I then went on to explain that vendor support is one of the two critical keys, the other the technical details, for the standard to succeed.  I went on to stress that the leaders for successful adoption of CMIS need to be the ECM Platform vendors.

I then promised some more posts on the topic and promptly vanished.  I’ve been busy at work and trying to enjoy the college football season.  I have vowed to get some posts out in the next week addressing the vendor support for CMIS.  As I know most familiar with EMC’s efforts, I’m starting with them.

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Taking Advantage of Changing Venues

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I’ve written some things in the past that portray the negative aspects of being a contractor and moving from implementation to implementation without working for a company helping you advance down a career path.  Well, one advantage to being a contractor is that it affords you the opportunity to see and visit many sites.

I consult, so I get to move around a little.  Most of my clients happen to be local, but I visit different spots throughout the Washington, DC area.  Recently, I’ve been in the Arlington area and have gotten to visit a few memorials that are fairly new and I hadn’t gotten to visit before.

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My Floating Head on the EMC Developer Network

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Have you ever read my blog and wondered what I sound like in normal conversation?  Have you looked at the new EMC Developer Network and you weren’t sure where to start?  Want to solve all the problems in the ECM world by starting to document our Design Patterns?

Are you in luck!  Alan Z and the crew over at the EDN patiently waited while I filmed myself talking to space and put together a quick little video explaining how we can start working together to capture our Design Patterns.  This video focuses on some content in the Documentum portion of the EDN, but this approach can work for capturing any knowledge in the EDN.

So go out there and start adding content.  I’m sure the EDN team will reward heavy contributors to the Design Patterns.  I know I will owe a debt of gratitude to the heavy contributors and I will pay-off that debt at the next conference.  More importantly, do it to help each other.  Set an example for others.  Even if you add one fact to the process, that is a fact that someone will need that nobody else may know.

Let’s go people.  Time to become more than just implementers.

Vendor Support for CMIS

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As I discussed yesterday, I’ve been waiting a long time for the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) standard.  There is still a fair amount of excitement out there as more people join the conversation.  I’m still excited, but the excitement is beginning to be tempered by reality.

There are two primary factors to standard adoption:

  • Is the standard technically sound?  It has to actually solve the stated problem.  It is okay if a standard is limited in functionality in initial drafts as long as it evolves to accomplish everything required.  At the same time, it must be easy enough to use.  These are not small technical challenges.
  • Is there vendor support?  Let’s face it, if the vendors don’t support it, then it will fail.  The JSR-170 and JSR-283 standards are perfect examples.  They aren’t supported by a critical mass of vendors.  The reasons range from the technical (we work in Java), to the philosophical (it is a bad standard, let’s focus elsewhere), and to the lazy (nobody cares so let’s ignore it).

Customers are important, but it takes a large mass of them to force the vendors to act.  I would qualify them as a secondary factor.  While I digest the technical aspects, take a look at the Vendor Support factor.

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Enter CMIS, a Proposed ECM-SOA Standard

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I am almost too excited for words.  Every thought I have is leading down ten different paths.  You may ask why.  Simple, they finally announced an ECM-SOA standard.  This new standard, Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS), has been submitted to OASIS for approval.  This is the same standard that I initially learned about at EMC World.

Emails streamed to me all day alerting me to this announcement, and I was blissfully offline.  Now I wish some people (you know who you are) had told me to pay attention this morning.  As it is, I’ve decided to let everyone of you know about it and give some thoughts to the effort.  I still have to review the actual specification and find out what this means to each of the key vendors.

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CenterStage Beta has Begun!!!

Too important to not post this in addition to the big CMIS news.  If you signed up for the CenterStage (formerly Magellan) Beta, you can download the software on the CenterStage Beta site hosted by EDN Labs.  They plan to start taking feedback the week of the 22nd, so get to it.

Forecasting the Future of Documentum and SharePoint

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I look at the numbers.  I know that I get a bump in readership just by using the workword SharePoint.  It also happens to be a vital issue to the Documentum world.  Aside from the future of CenterStage vs. SharePoint, which is a non-starter until we see a non-beta CenterStage, there is this simple fact.  People are adopting SharePoint and are looking for help more and more often.  This can be in the way of services, but can also be from and enhanced architecture created with the help of Documentum.

Well, we’ve been patient, and Andrew has begun to share some of his thinking with us.  Andrew Chapman is a great person and lets his sense of humor show in his blog.  If you don’t find it funny, you are doomed in the ECM world.  If there is any field that requires a sense of humor, it is ECM.

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The New Developer Network and ECM Design Patterns

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It has been a while since my last real post.  It hasn’t been for lack of things to talk about, I’ve just been extremely busy.  I am still behind on things, but I can see the light and this is a topic that just won’t wait.

One of the things that I’ve set as a goal is to build a better, stronger community for Documentum experts.  This isn’t just for developers, or only a place to go to ask questions.  It is building a sense that we are all in this together.  For those that haven’t noticed, the EMC Developer Network recently went through the promised upgrade into a tool that will allow us to build that Documentum Community.

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The Elvii versus Chaos

That has been my life the past week or two.  The good news, there is no one thing causing the chaos.  The better news, some things that have been hanging over me for the past year are now resolved, mostly for the positive.  Now I just need to catch up on all of my projects which will take the rest of the week.  I even plan on getting back to my posts.  I have some good ones slated for the next couple of weeks.

The highlight was one night when I strolled into one client’s office in the middle of the night to perform some triage.  There had been an issue and I wasn’t onsite that day and was unable to be onsite, in normal business hours, until the following week.  So I trudged into the office unsure of what was going to be required to get things back to normal, and I saw these Elvii from down the hall.

elvii

I had been scheduled to be in that day, and it was the closest, onsite day to my birthday.  I had missed the celebrations due to a sick child (better now). It was a nice little pick-me-up in the middle of the night.  What was especially cool was the tie-in to Las Vegas that Elvis automatically brings.  I flashed-back to the good parts of EMC World.

I won’t share what else was done, but suffice it to say that there is some revenge to be dealt out.

A Career or A Job…Redux

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My first post on this topic raised some great discussion points.  I’ve wanted to revisit the topic for a bit, but have been pressed for time.  I didn’t want to rush this post as I didn’t want to be redundant.  There are a couple of points I wanted to address.

Before I do, some definitions for this discussion.  These are not absolutes and just generalizations for the basis of discussion.  There are shades of gray that I am not going to focus upon because I want to finish sometime this year.

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