Documentum

Where in the World is Pie?

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As you may have noticed, I’ve been a little inactive lately.  If you are even more observant, you may have noticed a few references to the fact that I was very busy in August and September.  After all, CMIS was finally released last month and I haven’t even posted an analysis on how it measures up from a technical standpoint.

The answer is a little more complex than too much going on a daily basis.  It boils down to one thing, borderline burnout.  I’ve not only not been doing anything on my commute even remotely work-related, I’ve sometimes been going home and night and not even using a computer!  I think my wife hasn’t said anything because I think she is happy about that behavior, even if it is a warning sign.

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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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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.

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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Documentum 6.5 is Released

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Just so you know, last night I saw the first bits of D6.5 on the download site. The entire core stack is out. If you are a partner, you may not see some components as they are fixing some of the entitlements. I expect that to be fixed quickly. [Edit 8/5/2008: Fixed.] Share and enjoy.

Also, D7 is slated for Q4 2009. This is on schedule for 18 months after D6.5, as their strategy for releases dictates.

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Documentum Connector for MS Office SharePoint Server 2007 Overview and Demo

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At the EMC Federal Government Forum, we were treated to a surprise, the overview of a new SharePoint/Documentum integration. Slated to be released shortly, it appears to replicate the features of the existing SharePoint products. The difference is that the Documentum Connector for MOSS 2007 is based upon DFS and Web Services and is customizable. This means that what you see is what you start with, not what you get.

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Mark Lewis at the 2008 EMC Federal Government Forum

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When I heard that Mark Lewis was going to be presenting the keynote at the EMC Federal Government Forum, I knew that I had to meet him. After seeing him at EMC World in Vegas this year, I was critical of Mark. I was confused because the impression from watching him speak did not match with what I heard from the people working at EMC.

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D6.5 Release Information

According to Whitney Tidmarsh’s talk today, D6.5 is slated for the end of July.  An official announcement should be coming next week.

What does this mean?  It should be on the download site by the second week in August.  The download site is run by a 3rd party, so sometimes it takes a bit to get everything updated.

If you work with your account rep, you can make sure that you get it on the actual release date.

Old Documentum Architecture Habits are Hard to Break

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A while back, John Kominetz wrote a nice post on The Elephant and the Blind Man. I’ve been checking John out for a while and been looking for an excuse to link to his stuff for a while, but I always get sidetracked. Aside from his fun habit to reference Douglas Adams, he has been working with Documentum for a very long time. He has developed a healthy skepticism about the product.

In his post on the Elephant, John talks about the load of Junk DNA in Documentum. As the product has evolved over the last 15 years, things have been left behind and other things that worked, haven’t evolved. My recent post on the Audit Trail has led to a couple of posts addressing both of these aspects.

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