Documentum – EMC World 2013 – Momentum – Day 1 – EMC Documentum 7.0 Roadmap

One of the better roadmap presentations was given by Aaron J. Aubrecht and Patrick Walsh.  Some great useful and candid information. 

Core Platform Roadmap Only

The best part of the presentation was the honesty and candidness of Aaron and Patrick.  Aaron’s first question was “How many people are on Documentum 7 now” – one business user (our of 200 people) raised his hand.  (The bulk were on 6.5 – no would acknowledge 5.x versions but we know they are our there).  Aaron focused his presentation on why move to Documentum 7.

Aaron Aubrecht – What’s New in Documentum 7.0

• Lower Total Cost of Ownership(TCO) – Reduced resource utilization and increased performance via intelligent Session Management and Type Caching
• Higher Total Customer Experience (TCE) – Improved Content Intelligence via xPlore 1.3 – Private Cloud Deployment
• Enhanced Trust and Security

Lower Total Cost of Ownership – Multi-plexing number of sessions between the stack to use up to 65% less memory and boost user load up to 8X.  Also, Type Caching – 60% Less memory required for the same number of Types.  Note:  The stats were driven off a Windows server, Linux and other environments will not have the same session management until 7.1.  Disclaimer on whether other environments would have the same performance improvements as Windows.

xPlore 1.3 – Higher TCE Via Improved Content Intelligence

• Improved Information Discovery – Large file support through partial indexing, content classification inline for richer faceted search, date-range search and recommendation engine.
• Simplified Federated Search – Singe Search API for Documentum and non-DCTM as well as index unmanaged content from file system.
• Enterprise Integration – Scriptable Command Line for automation as well as Admin API

Documentum 7 – Trust and Security

• FIPS 140-2, Level 1 Complaince
• Centralized Key Management
• AES Encryption

Syncplicity Connector for Documentum

• Extended Enterprise Reach
• Controlled Content Sharing
• End-User or Process-Driven
• Security Enforced at the Endpoint

Patrick Walsh– What’s New in Documentum 7.1 – Q4/2013

• Enable Upgrades – Solaris 11, AIX 7.1 TL2, DB2 Enterprise 9.7 FP7, Windows Server 2012, Websphere 8.5
• Lower TCO – Higher TCE – Extend session management and type caching to non-Windows platforms
• Enhanced Trust and Security

Expanded Infrastructure Certifications

• 7.0 – Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 x64, DB (SQL Server 2008/2010, Oracle 11g R2)
• 7.0 – Linux Red Hat – 6.3 x64, Oracle 11g R2
• 7.1 – Linux Red Hat 6.x, Solaris, DB2, AIX

xCelerated Management System 1.1 – Lower TCO & Higher TCE via Automation

• Smarter Deployment
• Improved Administration
• Expanded Certifications

Introducing Documentum REST Services – Q3 – 2013

• Higher TCE via Improved Integration Technology
• Standards Based (should have asked CMIS question here)
• Consumer-agnostic
• Mobile Friendly
• Everything is resource
• Scalability

Will include Authentication Services, Repository Services, Object Services, Schema Services, Query Services, Filter Language Expression

Documentum 7.1 – Enhanced Trust and Security

• Stronger Authentications Security – Non-anonymous SSL
• Enteprise Integration – Authentication plug-in for Jasig Central Authenticatoin Service (CAS)
• Reduce Risk from Internal Attacks

Aaron – Upgrading to Documentum 7

Aaron began by asking “Who is running Documentum in x86 virtualized environment”  – not that many.  Aaron transitioned into a great point about Documentum moving away from Sybase and non-common platforms as it was consuming engineering resources.  We have always advised clients to stay in the “big boat” with other folks – typically Oracle on Windows or Linux these days.  In regards to non-common platforms, DB2/AIX is still in roadmap but not very common among Documentum base.  Given the size of IBM, would expect that would continue but still be at the end of the upgrade schedule.

Best point of the presentation was the ability to run D6.7 SP2 applications (like Webtop) on a D7 backend.  By decoupled the Clients makes for a more flexible upgrade.  Aaron awknowledged that they, Documentum, had issues separating clients and content server.  Important points:

• 6.7 SP2 clients are compatible with D7 Content Server.
• 6.7 SP2 clients can not access xCP 2.0 data.

Documentum Enterprise Migration Applications (EMA)

• VMware appliance plus a methodlogy – (it’s a solution)
• Is a services engagement – Documentum Consulting only – we hear that the tool is “free” but the resources are not – is a tool that services team can use
• Base of skilled professionals to affect that migration.  More on migration appliance in later posts.

Some Documentum future discussions and themes

• Best in Class ECM – With ViPR Integration, rapid content access through addressable caching
• Trusted Platform – Mobile SSO via SAML and OAuth, Federated Identity Management and Dynamic User Enrollment for virtual trust zones
• As much cloud as you need – Dynamic scaling with xMS, Cloud based performance management and monitoring, Content contribution & bi-directional sync with Syncplicity

Summary

Overall, Ellen and I thought this was one of the best roadmap presentations we have seen over the years at Momentum.  Rather than the sales hype (ex:  D2 is the best thing ever), Aaron and Patrick were very pragmatic about how they are addressing client concerns about D7.  The format What’s in D7, coming in 7.1 and how to upgrade fit the flow of what clients are asking.

Throughout the conference, we (TSG) have been struggling with the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) justification for upgrading to D2 or xCP and thought it was implied/mandatory to get to D7.  With the roadmap presentation, we saw a sound business approach for existing Webtop clients.

1. Upgrade Webtop client to D6.7 SP2 on existing back-end of D6.7
2. Upgrade back-end from 6.7 to 7.0 (if on Windows Server) or wait for 7.1 (if on Linux or other) to get benefits of performance to reduce number of servers as well as get continued back-end support if decide to stay on Webtop 6.7 past end of life of 6.7 content server (Currently April 30, 2015, April 30 2017 for extended)
3. Wait for business decision to justify cost/effort of migrating Webtop to D2 or xCP

We like this approach as we struggle with a business user paying for a migration effort (combined with risk and retraining) if they aren’t getting any new business value from D2 or xCP.  We also always recommend that, for support, back-end is much more important than client.

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