A Comparative Analysis : Traditional Enterprise Content Management Systems Vs. Hosted, Online Document Management

When selecting a document management system, a company has two broad options – big and powerful ECM (Enterprise Content Management) Systems, or the new wave, nimble, hosted web-based systems. Each type has its respective merits and demerits. The following is an analysis, undertaken from a small to mid sized business perspective. Rather than a generic comparison, it would make sense to proceed by illustrating each of these two types of document management systems with a prominent solution in the respective classes.

Enterprise Content Management Systems – Documentum as a Typical Case in Study

Documentum, now owned by EMC Corporation, is an enterprise content management solution launched in 1993, and has gone through many phases of evolution until its current avatar. Its close to $2 billion takeover by EMC in 2003 indicates its success in no small measure. It is hugely popular with large enterprises, and serves more than 2,500 of the world’s largest firms.

Rather than a piece of software, Documentum is a collection of specialized software tools, which, depending upon needs, can be piled up like building blocks on a basic platform to form a solution of ever increasing complexity.

Architecture

Documentum’s architecture segregates the back and front ends of the solution. The fundamental platform is the Server platform, where the documents and content that you store into the system are managed. There is more than one server application, and the most important is the Content Server. Almost all products reside on the content server and will not function without it. Further, applications, services & clients reside on the server to form the complete solution.

Features

The power of Documentum allows almost for an unlimited number of services or features to be added for specific situations over the core platform. It even allows for specialized applications to be developed over the core platform. Some main document management features are follows.

Storage – Unlike other systems, Documentum saves all files as objects rather than file types. This removes the need to associate a file type with its associated software product. A separate relational database solution is required where the documents and other information are actually stored. The exact benefits of this configuration are beyond the current scope, but it is this unique configuration that gives Documentum its tremendous power for enterprise environments that sets it apart from other solutions.

Remote Access – The documents on the content server can be accessed thousands of miles away by anyone who has the rights.

Desktop Client – One of the options to access the Documentum platform is the desktop client. This is software that needs to be installed on the user’s workstation. The main benefit of this client is that it comes with built-in OS support for Microsoft Office products including MS Word, MS Excel, MS Outlook, etc.

Web Access – Documentum’s WebTop client, which needs to be purchased separately, is a web-based client, through which users can access their Documentum platform from any web browser. It allows users flexibility, but does not provide the complete feature set of the desktop client.

Web Collaboration – Documentum’s eRoom service, which also needs to be purchased separately, allows distributed teams to collaborate on documents. Collaboration features like versioning, locking, calendars, discussions, Outlook and SharePoint integration are included.

Search – Documentum allows deep search capabilities. This is augmented by the ability to attach searchable “attributes” or meta data to each document like author, title, description, document type or any other keywords.

Versioning – Storing a document automatically creates a version attribute and assigns it to your document. When the document is revised and returned to the system users are given the choice if they want to create a new version or apply a revision attribute.

Locking – Whenever one user is using a file, it is locked for changes for other users.

Backup – Documetum provides numerous backup solutions which need to be purchased separately.

Security - Documentum comes with a number of advanced security solutions. Included and the most basic of these security features is called Access Control Lists (ACL). This form of security has been around for a long time and for most installations, this is all the security you will ever need. However for advanced security solutions like encryption separate solutions need to be purchased which come under the banner of Trusted Content services.

Are Enterprise Class Solutions Suitable for Small/Mid Sized Companies?

Although there’s no denying the power of enterprise content management solutions, too much doesn’t always translate to excellence, especially for smaller companies. For example, Documentum is a huge, complex, & expensive solution, which is suitable for global enterprises that need highly specialized implementations. Some disadvantages of a solution like Documentum from a SMB point of view are the following:

Costs – ECM systems have huge price tags. For example, Documentum pricing is based on per server and per seat rates. An initial contract with a customer is normally $200,000+ with a further contract usually $500,000+. Total costs of ownership amount to even more with the additional costs of dedicated servers, full time IT personnel for maintenance, anti virus software, database software, support licenses, etc.

Implementation Effort – To get a measure of the implementation effort involved, one needs only consider a Documentum implementation. Resources required to ensure a successful implementation include a consulting principal, a lead architect, a business analyst, a technical consultant, and project management. Necessary skills are Windows or UNIX experience, depending on whether Documentum 5 is running on Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, or AIX, Visual Basic, Java, JSP, SQL, and application servers. A typical implementation takes as long as three to six months.

Complexity - Documentum is hardly a light weight, out of the box solution and far from the modern instantly deployable solutions for small businesses. There are dozens of different software components on top of an object database and content storage system. Customization is essential for even basic functionality. Interfaces are known to be horribly confusing. This obviously translates into bewildered & irate users, greater learning curves, specialized staff & huge implementation effort and costs.

Training & Support – Documentum’s tremendous complexity naturally leads to greater training and support needs. This complexity demands breeding of specialist “Documentum experts”, expensive training from specialist training providers and expensive “Documentum manuals”.

Dedicated Administration – The system requires a dedicated administrator to look into all aspects of system level maintenance. There are configurations, logs, jobs, methods and special programs running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week that need to be monitored. Irrespective or the kind of installation, there needs to be a full time administrator to look after the system. If the system is ignored for even a little time, it is likely to break down.