Documentum – EMC World 2013 Momentum – Day 1 – Rick Devenuti Keynote

Not a ton of information in the Joe Tucci overall EMC Keynote as it relates to the Documentum Community.  First major keynote was Rick Devenuti – CEO of Information Intelligence Group – slightly different from last year’s keynote.  This post will cover thoughts from this year.

Documentum Enterprise Migration Appliance – Revolutionary Approach to Migration. 

In our discussions after the keynote, we thought the big announcement, as mentioned yesterday was the announcement of EMA – the migration appliance.  Rick stated, pretty much correctly, that for existing customers, the migration from 5.3 to 6 (and before that 5.2.5 to 5.3) was a pain an many don’t want to go through that again.  Rick recognized that many clients are still on old versions of Documentum products.  Inhibitors included:

• Acquire new hardware – Rick would like to address this with OnDemand with cloud provisioned hardware.
• Deployment – worked hard on making D7 easier to deploy
• Build and Test – D2/Xcp focused on configuration instead of coding
• Maintain and Update – EMC is focused on making it easier to support Documentum

EMA (pronounced Emma) was developed to physically move large amounts of data.  Rick mentioned that their team had been working on EMA for 12 Months.  Some interesting points:

• Built for High Performance – 1.2M Objects Per Hour by going to the database layer instead of the API layer.
• First step in the process is the clone the database (discussed during Sobi live migration going one throughout EMC World)
• Preserve Object IDs and Audit Trails – In flight Workflows to maintain integrity

As mentioned yesterday, EMA is not so much a software product as it is a consulting offering.  Documentum Consulting offering a free one week assessment to help customers identify their migration needs (sign-up ends in August).

TSG Thoughts – EMA

After the keynote and yesterday’s presentation, we (TSG) had more than a couple of questions asking our thoughts.  Given our experience with migrations in creating OpenMigrate, what do you think of IIG Consulting’s offering.  Some quick thoughts:

• IIG recognizes the need for migration.  With the object model changing with migration to D2 or xCP, adopters of the new tools will have to migrate their existing content to the new model.
• IIG recognizes the hesitation of their clients to upgrade the application.  D2 has been out for a year.  While we feel it has probably been successful with “green field” or new Documentum installations, clients that are in Webtop environments might be hesitant to upgrade given their previous experience, cost of new tools, cost of migration and overall risk aversion.  Lastly, if Webtop is “good enough”, they might not believe that D2 or xCP are truly worth the effort and risk.

In our discussions with clients familiar with migration after the keynote – some other thoughts:

• Migration is only one part of the upgrade.  The issue with the upgrades from 5.2.5 to 5.3 as well as 5.3 to 6.x that caused clients pain was not the migration (since the object model didn’t change) it was the interface change, getting their Webtop configurations/customizations onto the new Webtop, testing, training along with hardware/database upgrades.
• Given that D2 and xCP require an object model change, the upgrade effort could be ACTUALLY WORSE than 5.3 to 6.0 where an in place upgrade was possible and sometimes common.  D2’s ability to remove the customizations should help remove the interface effort but the integrity of the data changes needs to be confirmed.
• Database Clone versus Delta Migration – One telling point in regards to EMA was that it started with a Database Clone.  This approach would require that the system not be updated (as changes would be lost) while the migration was working on the clone.  We have seen clients be more successful with a initial migration and then a delta migration to avoid significant system downtime.  We are not sure the architecture/approach of EMA allows that type of migration.
• Other components of the Stack – typically the upgrade pushed upgrade of the rest of the application stack.  This can include server, database, web server, annotation, PDF Overlay and all the other components that need to fit.  Given that D2 requires a new overlay, that piece would need to be specifically addressed.
• Other migrations – We have been promoting for quite some time that a true migration infrastructure can be used for more than just upgrades.  This includes imports, exports as well as publishing jobs.  Not sure the approach and ties to Documentum consulting provides for clients to use on their own for ongoing migrations.

We will be posting specifically on other thoughts around migration in later sessions and for the summary.

Productized Solutions

The other interesting component was adding on to last year’s focus on solutions.  The five productized solutions include:

• Energy and Engineering – Rick mentioned EPFM (Engineering, Plant and Facilities Management) – Capital – 1.8 – New release of Asset Operations – 2.0 (not until 2014 on D2)
• Life Sciences – Rick again mentioned the big return to life sciences – Life Sciences Solution Suite – Quality and Manufacturing – announcing Clinical Electronic File Master Trial this year.  (More in later posts)
• Healthcare – Documentum for Healthcare – Medical Image Sharing and Management – Virtual Patient Information Repository.  Rick announced integration with Epic.  (Epic does have competitive product – will try to post more when learn how Documentum differentiates).
• Public Sector – no extra detail here
• Financial Services –  no extra detail here

Rick also highlighted that partners and the partner ecosystem are helping provide 80 additional certified solutions.

TSG Thoughts – IIG Solutions

We counted a total of 33 “solution” references during the keynote.  IIG Solutions need to be viewed as a combination of products and consulting services from IIG.   Clients need to be comfortable with both the software product and consulting resources.  We are starting to hear that clients will have some options besides Documentum Consulting (EPFM mentioned – haven’t heard on Life Sciences yet as it was mentioned that it was single source in a later session).

Other Points from the Keynote

Lots of buzzwords and other points – assuming that the keynote will eventually be on YouTube – view at your own leasure.  Buzzwords included:

• Transformation
• On Demand
• Lower TCO
• Cloud
• Security
• Transform your business with software and cloud solutions that connection information to work.
• Pervasive Governance – Mobile
• Webtop and Taskspace can run on D7 with D6.7 SP2.

Summary

Overall, we would say the keynote was somewhat consistent with Rick’s keynote from last year.  We had predicted that Rick would announce additional consulting purchases (or mention Trinity purchase for energy for Utilities).  We didn’t expect the Migration Appliance to be the big announcement but see the purpose as clients have been hesitant to move to the new tools.   Continued push for solutions/consulting.   Trying to push this out quickly but will try to put a better overall thoughts at the end of the conference.

Keynote available on YouTube – view below:

Let us know your thoughts or analysis below.