Beefing Up Documentum 4i for
High Performance on the Web

By Penny Lunt

Documentum realized that companies were using its 4i solution for intranets and extranets, but few had applied it to robust Internet applications. As a result, the company developed 4i eBusiness edition, which incorporates several new features for high-performance content management in e-business use.

Using 4i eBusiness edition, collaborators at all levels, from Web novices to Webmasters, can contribute content to the site. Documentum has provided a way to replicate content at locations throughout the world using Web server “farms.” They’ve added XML support to separate data from structure and ensure content consistency. Finally, they’re supporting integrations with BroadVision’s One-to-One relationship management software, BEA’s E-Commerce Transaction Platform, Commerce One’s MarketSite Portal Solution and E.piphany’s E.4 personalization software.

The WebPublisher in 4i eBusiness Edition provides three different user interfaces for generating content. Business users can use Microsoft Office and other common business tools to create Word and PDF documents. Frequent content contributors can use an XML template interface set up by administrators or designers. The templates will enforce a consistent overall design and layout for Web pages. For experienced Web designers working with richer, more fluid content, Documentum built an FTP gateway that lets them create content using popular Web design tools such as Allaire’s HomeSite, Macromedia’s DreamWeaver and, with a forthcoming extension, Microsoft’s Front Page. These tools can handle streaming video, streaming audio and JPEGs.

Metadata

Vendor: Documentum
Pleasanton, CA, 925-600-6800
Product: 4i eBusiness Edition
Description: Document and content management system providing document check-in and check-out, revision control and library services. New features improve preparation, storage and delivery of content over the Web.
Strengths: Caching, site management and replication features ease administration while supporting high-performance sites with multiple Web servers. Added XML/XSL style sheets keep the presentation layer separate from the data to ease reformatting and ensure consistency. Integrations to e-commerce and personalization software.
Weaknesses: Full-fledged Web site management features, such as link maintenance and XML editing, are in their first generation.
Pricing: $200-$600 per seat based on volume. Server-based pricing option ranges from $7,000 to $80,000 depending on functionality. A packaged solution, including products, licenses and training, for a small to mid-size Web site is $190,000.

“In developing this product, we tried to find the common denominators for things people in all industries needed,” says Cheryl O’Neill, technical marketing manager of eBusiness Solutions at Documentum. “The FTP gateway is a layer that serves that base group of functions.”

Until recently, Documentum users had to use the RightSite Web server interface to deliver documents stored in 4i through a Web server. The trouble was, this interface couldn’t handle the eight million hits a day that some Documentum customers experience. RightSite is still used as an interface between contributors and the Web site, but the company has added a more open and scalable delivery mechanism called WebCache that can handle high-volume Web traffic.

WebCache incorporates its own mini database, two tables of selected metatags and file system content. It provides read-only search and retrieval of files, and it lets you create dynamic site maps. It has a JDBC API and lets you perform SQL queries. WebCache also lets you stage and preview content to support editing and to see how Web pages relate to each other.

For companies that need high-performance Web sites both domestically and internationally, eDeploy lets you administer a Web site centrally and then replicate the content to large, distributed server farms. It encrypts cache content, sends it to the remote servers and then decrypts the content. It can send changes by byte. For example, you can fix a typo on all the servers by sending the correction alone rather than rewriting the whole file.

Replication lets customers in distant countries access local servers rather than waiting for trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific access to a server in, say, Chicago. Site managers control all assets and manage deployment centrally. They receive unified reports that show who’s visiting the site and what they’re doing there.

4i eBusiness Edition integrates with personalization technologies such as Macromedia LikeMinds, E.piphany RightPoint and the Net Perceptions Recommendation Engine to let you match content to customer profiles for better service and cross-selling. It also integrates with application servers and commerce servers such as BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, ATG Dynamo and BroadVision One-to-One Enterprise. 4i already worked with SAP, Notes and other widely used applications.

Balaji Yelamanchili, Documentum’s director, product management and marketing, says that additional partnerships and integrations are planned. “Customers are not yet ready to say, ‘I know who the winners are,’” he explains.

Atlanta-based Delta Airlines uses Documentum software to handle more than $2 million in transactions per day on its Web site (www.delta-air.com). The Web server is run by BEA’s WebLogic software; 4i stores and delivers the content behind it. In addition to Documentum’s workflow capabilities and its automated process for staging content before approving it, Delta was attracted by the software’s reliability.

“We’re a Unix shop, [but] most of the products that perform this function work on NT,” says Wayne Hyde, vice president, e-Partners at Delta. “We wanted a high-performance platform that was more consistent with our environment.”

In addition to running on a heavy-duty platform, Hyde says Delta liked 4i’s content replication capability, which lets them duplicate their content on four servers and accommodate millions of hits.

“Say we run an ad in USA Today offering 10 percent off all Friday and Saturday overnight flights to Florida and California, and we offer an extra 2,000 frequent flyer miles if you buy the ticket over the Web,” Hyde says. “We could have 10,000 to 15,000 simultaneous users on our site. If a user can get the page painted on their screen in half a second versus one second, that’s a big deal for us. When a company makes the front page of the Wall Street Journal because they ran a sale one day and their Web site performance was poor, people sell their stock.”

Delta plans to transition to the eBusiness Edition of 4i by the end of the year. WebCache and eDeploy will allow Delta to replicate the content on more servers as Web site usage grows, but they’ll still maintain central control over the repository.

“If we put up a new version [of content] and somebody doesn’t like it, we can fall back to previous versions,” Hyde says. “Over time we’re building a library of objects that we can reuse on the Web.”

Hyde says 4i’s version control makes Delta’s designers more productive. “Instead of changing a graphic 20 times, they change it once in a document library [and the software will] automatically populate the change in all the places that graphic is used.”

Delta plans to use the new XML templates to ensure site consistency. “We’re a big company, and every department wants to have their own Web pages,” Hyde explains, adding that there are 250 departmental sub sites on the Delta intranet. Each has its own organizational charts, news bulletins and other items. “[Currently] anybody can publish what they want on these sites. Once we establish templates, up will pop a standard template, and they’ll fill it out in Word, Dream Weaver or any tool they choose.”