Documentum Upgrade – Replacing the PIA (Primary Interop Assembly) with OpenSearch

Last week we updated a client’s .NET application to replace Documentum’s defunct PIA (Primary Interop Assembly) API with calls to OpenSearch through HPI. This client’s HPI instance is an offline content viewer portal that utilizes Solr for searching and serving documents.  The .NET code change was minimal, simply replacing the PIA calls with OpenSearch calls effectively changing the source of where the application gets its documents from Documentum to Solr. Decoupling the .NET application from the proprietary Documentum API provides greater flexibility in designing, developing, and deploying web applications as well as removing Documentum licensing. After the change to call Opensearch, the application is now shielded from any future upgrades or changes within the Documentum API.

To learn more about using content viewer portals and replacing the PIA, check out these blog posts.