Table of Contents
Overview…………………………………………………………………………………...
What is CMIS………………………………………………………………………………
What is SaaS………………………………………………………………………………..
Architecture…………………………………………………………………………………
CMIS Documentum…………………………………………………………………………
Implementation Approach……………………………………………………………………
Advantage…………………………………………………………………………………...
Overview
In my last article I had shown how documents can be
retrieved from a mobile device from Documentum repository. Now I thought to
discuss a cloud based ECM system which interacts with different ECM vendors.
Yes, you are thinking correct; this cloud based ECM system is independent of
ECM vendors like EMC Documentum, Alfresco Document Management, IBM Content
Manager or Microsoft SharePoint. Technologies are changing day by day, so it’s
a time to move from web based application to cloud based application. Your favorite cell phone or tablet can become
effective way to communicate between different repositories. One person can access documents from one
repository to another repository seamlessly and for this we do not need to
develop vendor specific application. Well,
this solution can be achieved using CMIS- Content Management Interpretability
Service.
What is CMIS?
CMIS is a standard developed by OASIS to communicate
between different Enterprise content management systems. CMIS uses Web services
and Web 2.0 interfaces to enable rich information to be shared across Internet
protocols in vendor-neutral formats, among document systems, publishers and
repositories, within one enterprise and between companies. CMIS is vendor
independent and it has its own APIs to talk to different repositories. Using
CMIS one repository can communicate to another repository(Figure 1). CMIS comes
with two different flavors : i) RestFul AtomPub binding ii) Webservice binding.
In my application I’ve used AtomPub binding. Atom feed has many advantage over
RSS feed like image or audio file can be handled by Atom feed but RSS feed
deals with only plain text and html.
CMIS provides different services like Repository service,
Object Service, Version service, Policy service.
Figure 1
Below is one atom example which I used to create Folder
called CloudTest –
<?xml version="1.0"
encoding="utf-8"?>
<entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
xmlns:cmisra="http://docs.oasis-open.org/ns/cmis/restatom/200908/"
xmlns:cmis="http://docs.oasis-open.org/ns/cmis/core/200908/">
<title>CloudTest</title>
<cmisra:object>
<cmis:properties>
<cmis:propertyId propertyDefinitionId="cmis:objectTypeId"><cmis:value>cmis:folder</cmis:value></cmis:propertyId>
</cmis:properties>
</cmisra:object>
</entry>
By executing the below crul command, we can create a sub folder under a folder called
cmistest in Alfresco repository.
curl -X POST -uadmin:admin
"http://localhost:8080/alfresco/s/cmis/s/workspace:SpacesStore/p/cmistest/children"
-H "Content-Type:application/atom+xml" -d @C:/CMIS/testFolder.atom.xml
Below is Atom
example of creating document –
<?xml version="1.0"
encoding="utf-8"?>
<entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
xmlns:cmisra="http://docs.oasisopen.org/ns/cmis/restatom/200908/"
xmlns:cmis="http://docs.oasisopen.org/ns/cmis/core/200908/">
<title>sample.doc</title>
<summary>A sample Doc</summary>
<content type="application/msword">
Cloud Test
</content>
<cmisra:object>
<cmis:properties>
<cmis:propertyId propertyDefinitionId="cmis:objectTypeId"><cmis:value>cmis:document</cmis:value></cmis:propertyId>
</cmis:properties>
</cmisra:object>
</entry>
Command –
curl -X POST -uadmin:admin
"http://localhost:8080/alfresco/s/cmis/s/workspace:SpacesStore/p/cmistest/CloudTest/children"
-H "Content-Type: application/atom+xml" -d @C:/CMIS/testDoc.atom.xml
Query language to fetch info from CMIS repository –
We do not need to use DQL to query Documentum repository,
instead we you can use CMIS query. It looks like –
SELECT * FROM cmis:document
Here
obvious question is where is the security? CMIS does not talk about security.
There are many ways to implement security. One of the ways I followed is encode
the content using Apache Base64 encoding. So before putting your message,
content needs to be encoded.
What is SaaS
Cloud computing means you are not selling your product
instead you are renting your product as a service. There are 3 types of service available in
market – i) Infrastructure as a service(IaaS) ii) Software as a service(SaaS) and
iii) Platform as a service (PaaS). Again, Cloud service can be divided into 3
categories i) Public Cloud ii) Private
Cloud and iii)Hybrid Cloud
There is a big challenge In ECM market which cloud should
be used. Considering the fact of security, an IT company can host Private cloud
and configure ECM strategy. ECM on cloud
solution can be implemented as SaaS in
private cloud to make it secure.
Architecture diagram -
Figure 3
CMIS Documentum
EMC has launched Documentum 6.7 which is CMIS
compliant. You can also use 6.6 version
of CS.
Below Documentum object types are mapped with CMIS types
–
Documentum
Object Type
|
CMIS
Object type
|
dm_folder
|
cmis:folder
|
dm_document
|
cmis:document
|
dm_relation
|
cmis:relation
|
Document properties
|
|
CMIS
property
|
Documentum property Description
|
cmis:name
|
object_name
|
cmis:objected
|
r_object_id
|
cmis:objectTypeId
|
r_object_type
|
cmis:createdBy
|
r_creator_name
|
cmis:creationDate
|
r_creation_date
|
cmis:lastModifiedBy
|
r_modifier
|
cmis:lastModificationDate
|
r_modification_date
|
ACL representation with only CMIS basic permissions
<cmis:acl>
<cmis:permission>
<cmis:principal>
<cmis:principalId>dm_world</cmis:principalId>
</cmis:principal>
<cmis:permission>cmis:read</cmis:permission>
<cmis:direct>true</cmis:direct>
</cmis:permission>
<cmis:permission>
<cmis:principal>
<cmis:principalId>dm_owner</cmis:principalId>
</cmis:principal>
<cmis:permission>cmis:write</cmis:permission>
<cmis:direct>true</cmis:direct>
</cmis:permission>
<cmis:permission>
<cmis:principal>
<cmis:principalId>docu</cmis:principalId>
</cmis:principal>
<cmis:permission>cmis:read</cmis:permission>
<cmis:direct>true</cmis:direct>
</cmis:permission>
</cmis:acl>
Below are the steps which you need to implement if you
want to deploy any other app sever other than Content server –
1.
Download emc-cmis.war from EMC Download center
2.
Change the connection information in dfc.properties
3.
cmis-runtime.properties file defines application
behavior at CMIS layer. You may need to modify as per requirement.
4.
RESTful AtomPub binding can be obtained from
this address:
http://<host>:<port>/<contextPath>/resources/
Implementation Approach:
In my application I’ve used Android to communicate with
CMIS repository. As stated in the above
diagram a user using mobile device first launch this application. Authentication
can be done against LDAP directory through SOAP. To make it more secure I used http basic
authentication to successfully login to repository.
Here is code snippet –
String url ="http://192.168.1.109:8080/alfresco/cmisatom";
HttpClient client = new HttpClient( );
HttpState state = client.getState( );
Credentials credentials =
new
UsernamePasswordCredentials( "admin", "***" );
state.setCredentials( null, null, credentials );
HttpMethod method = new GetMethod( url
);
client.executeMethod( method );
String response =
method.getResponseBodyAsString( );
Below are the two snapshots, figure 4 & 5 -
Figure 4 Figure 5
After user login, application will display default folder
structure which is present in Alfresco repository and each folder will display
corresponding documents, figure 6 &7.
Figure 6 Figure 7
Below screenshot describes
how folder structure looks like in Alfresco repository when through Alfresco
web application –
User has the ability to
check-out and check-in a new version of a document. User can also read document
directly from repository. I have introduced cache mechanishim to make the
document available in less time. This application has the ability to take
metadata input and store the same in Repository during Check-in operation. This
metadata can be custom or default of repository. Figure 8, 9 and 10 describes this behavior –
Figure 8 Figure 9
I’ve seen people are too
lazy to write some information because today’s technology is well advance. Instead
of writing people generally prefer to take picture and use this information
later as per requirement. This application is perfectly suitable to serve these purpose Any user can take photo and upload it respective repository in cloud. Figure 11 describes the same –
Advantage:
Considering the current trend in technology, I’ve found
mobile application running on Android or Apple devices are emerging market.
There are many advantages of this application –
1.
It is difficult for one user to fetch a
information from different repository. For example, in an organization, HR
related documents are stored in Alfresco repository and Documentum stores
Finance related documents. In this scenario, its difficult to fetch or write
information at the same time. This
application is well suited for this purpose.
2.
There is scope to integrate BPM with this
application.
3.
User can easily upload photo in any repository.
Reference:
Link : https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=cmis,
http://developer.android.com/guide/components/fundamentals.html
