FileNet Content Interoperability

Posted on 18/05/2011 by ianw

With version 5.0 of IBM FileNet P8, IBM have now given their backing to a new standard, designed to allow interoperability between different Content repositories. Content Management Interoperability Services (or CMIS) is an interface specification that means a Business application is able to support multiple Content Management systems – if you’re familiar with ODBC or JDBC you get the idea. It has the benefit of being platform independent, and programming language neutral.

The CMIS specification has actually been developed by the OASIS consortium, and defines access through either SOAP or REST. CMIS does not expose every feature of every Content provider, but it does define all the common functions, and there is a growing list of ECM vendors: IBM, Microsoft, EMC, Open Text, Alfresco, SAP, Oracle, etc.

Getting FileNet Content Manager to support CMIS is pretty straight forward, and involves installing IBM CMIS software in WebSphere – so far it only supports AIX (part CZP1AML), Windows (part CZP1BML), and Linux (part CZP1CML) platforms. There have been suggestions from other early adopters that this software can also be applied against version 4.5.1 of P8. CMIS client applications effectively connect to the Content repository by accessing this web service.

OK, so how do we get our custom applications to connect to our Content via CMIS? You could call the web service directly if you’re a hard-core developer, and there are some great tutorials that will take you through step-by-step how to interrogate CMIS at a low-level. But always better to let someone else do the donkey work, and use a pre-fabricated library, and I heartily recommend you take a look at OpenCMIS (a.k.a. Apache Chemistry). As you may have deduced, this is an open-source initiative, and it supports Java, .net, and PHP. I’ve actually written a sample Java application myself that uses OpenCMIS, and it’s pretty straight forward.

CMIS also opens up the possibility of accessing FileNet content without relying on P8 applications such as Workplace. Take a look at OpenWorkDesk, which connects to any CMIS-compliant repository.

Posted in P8 v5 | Tagged | Leave a comment

FileNet P8 CPIT

Posted on 15/05/2011 by ianw

One thing that shocks newcomers to FileNet is the effort involved in installing the software. Any seasoned computer user would normally expect that it entails nothing more onerous than running setup.exe, with a shiny new application available within a few minutes. How wrong they are! An experienced engineer will do well to get the base system established in under a day. But for the complete P8 suite, spanning multiple environments, I’ve known this to take weeks, and frequently, months.

With version 5 of FileNet P8, IBM have introduced a new tool for installing the software. The CPIT, or Composite Platform Installation tool, allows implementers to deploy P8 within a single-server, and removes all the hassle that we’ve come to expect in installations. Under no circumstances should this be used in Production scenarios – with the constraint of running on a single machine it is intended for demonstration systems, development machines, and testing situations. For everything else, we’re back to the tried and trusted approach.

The tool is supported on Windows, AIX and Linux. It has to be said that it’s somewhat fussy – disk space requirements are adhered to religiously, permissions are not to be neglected, previous installation attempts must be wiped off, and even then, failures can occur for no obvious reason. But once you’ve adapted to its fussy demands, it really is a boon to be able to deliver a system in under 3 hours.

There is a downside though. I can’t speak for the rest of the FileNet community, but I’m not aware of any of my current or previous P8 customers who rely on the DB2 database, or Tivoli Directory services. But if you use CPIT, you’d better get used to them. One of the caveats of DB2 that I’ve recently found is that I had to acquire a Licence file; without it, DB2 refused to start up. No mention of that in the CPIT documentation. Reluctantly, I’ve had to start learning snippets of DB2 & TDS, so that I can manage the system, no choice really.

But then, I guess that was IBM’s intention when they introduced CPIT.

Posted in P8 v5 | Tagged , , | 1 Comment