Unleashing CMIS: From Federated Search to Developer Tools

Paul HamptonAlfresco

Laurence HartWashington Consulting, Inc.

Agenda

What are the issues

CMIS : Who, What and Why

Details of CMIS

AIIM CMIS Demo: Who, What and Why

AIIM CMIS Demo: Live Demo

CMIS: Further Resources

Questions and Answers

Challenges of Interoperability

Imaging/Workflow WCM XMLECM

ECM

Project/Collaboration

Project/Collaboration

Project/Collaboration

Project/Collaboration

WCMImaging/WorkflowECM

?? ????● Potentially dozens of Content Management

Systems with huge sunk cost

● Each ECM system is a silo

● Substantial operational and compliance risk to separate repositories

● System Integrators and Software Vendors need to write to very different APIs

● Previous standards failed to get adopted

● Yet there is a lot of commonality

● But there is “no adoptable standard”

Goals of CMIS

The Solution: Content Management Interoperability Services

Create a new ecosystem for ECM

Enable new classes of cross repo applications: eDiscovery, Publishing, Collaboration…

Create a common understanding of ECM: Query, Inheritance, Properties, CRUD Versions, etc.

To NOT expose ALL capabilities of a repository.

To NOT expose admin/management functions.

Who is behind CMIS?

● The need for such a standard was first identified by AIIM’s iECM Committee

● An initial proposal was drafted by EMC, IBM, & Microsoft● Reviewed by Alfresco, Open Text, Oracle, and SAP● All built early prototype to validate the design,

and tested interoperability among them● Draft was unveiled in Sept 2008 and donated to OASIS

● The OASIS CMIS Technical Committee was formed in Nov 2008

● 20+ vendors are participating● Aggressive working timeline for v1● http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=cmis

Who will benefit from CMIS?

● Enterprise● Unlock content without sacrificing investment● Gain business flexibility, agility, & insight

● Developer● Reduce development & maintenance cost● Increase addressable market

● User● More content becoming accessible● Improve usability due to uniformity● Cheaper & more abundant applications/tools

● Repository Vendor● Increase demand for repository technology● Create a horizontal market opportunity

Everybody Wins!

CMIS can bring

maturity to a

fragmented industry

and accelerate its

growth!

What is CMIS?

What is CMIS?

Content Management Interoperability Services

SQL Standard but for Content Management

Language Independent

Target Content Applicatoins and Collaboration

New SQL-based query language

Basic Operations thru AtomPub and Web Services bindings

Simple Data Model

How does it work?

CMIS(web-based, service-oriented

interface)

CMIS(web-based, service-oriented

interface)

Interoperable Content Application(on any platform)

Content Repository

(on any platform)

CMIS Implementation

Content Repository

(on any platform)

CMIS Implementation

Content Repository

(on any platform)

CMIS Implementation

CMIS RequestA mapping interface;Not a federation interface

Not all capabilities of a repository are

necessarily exposed

Application portability;Content reuse/integration

Core Use Cases

Collaborative Content Creation A set of users wish to work collaboratively to create one or more documents or

web pages. Need: Authentication, Security, Versioning

Portals Aggregated interface to viewing content from multiple sources. Need: Query

Mash-ups Composite applications that integrates data/functionality from one or more

sources. Need: Query, ReSTful Access (call via URL)

Search Support for “unified indexing” search engines Need: Change logs, ACL discovery

CMIS Protocol BindingsCMIS Protocol Bindings

● Web Services Binding:● Service-oriented binding● CMIS-specified XML schema● Capable for system-to-system access● Use MTOM to transfer content stream● WS-Security 1.1, Username Token Profile 1.1● Transactional Applications

● ReSTful AtomPub Binding:● Resource-based binding● Atom format with CMIS extensions● Browse-able by standard Atom feed readers● Suitable for ReSTful-style application-to-system access● HTTP authentication● Web-based Applications

iECM Demo for AIIM ‘09

● Organized by the AIIM iECM Committee● Thomas Pole, Chair● Betsy Fanning, AIIM Director of Standards● Project 2 months before the AIIM Conference

● Search Federator Application● Development led by Laurence Hart (CMIS Federator)

and Thomas Pole (User Interface)● Use CMIS (Web Services binding) to query/access

disparate,geographically distributed vendor repositories

● Content● Several issues of AIIM E-DOC Magazine, Infonomics

Magazine, and vendor material● Spread across repositories

● Participating vendors● Alfresco● EMC Corp● Nuxeo

How does it work?

CMIS Search Federator(California, US)

CMIS Search Federator(California, US)

AIIM iECM’s Search UI(.NET)

Alfresco Repository

(United Kingdom)

CMIS Implementation

Documentum Repository

(Amazon Cloud)

CMIS Implementation

Nuxeo Repository

(France)

CMIS Implementation

Challenges Building the Demo

● Hosting Challenges● Federator hosting service● Vendor server hosting

● Multiple Firsts● First SOAP-Based CMIS Application● First Multi-Vendor CMIS Application● The 80/20 rule

● Two Months to do Everything

● Only Possible with CMIS● Most technical challenges weren’t CMIS related● Nuxeo connector only took one hour to add

iECM System Demo

Alfresco’s CMIS

First implementation based upon the 0.5 Specification

Supports both Web Services and AtomPub protocols

Basis for all future public APIs

Used in integration with Drupal and Joomla

Demonstrates Alfresco as a Content Services Platform as well as App

Further Resources

● AIIM Demo ● http://aiim-iecm.org/● http://aiim-iecm.org/CMISDemoe/

● Alfresco CMIS Examples● http://aiim.alfrescodemo.com/

● CMIS Development Resources● http://www.cmisdev.org/

Questions?