Enterprise Content Management and cloud decision
process
Bc. Ing. Jaroslava Klegová, doc. Ing. Ivana Rábová, Ph.D., Department
of Informatics, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská 1, 613 00 Brno,
Czech Republic, e-mail: xklegova@mendelu.cz, rabova@mendelu.cz
AbstractRealizing the importance of information sharing many organizations begin to implement Enterprise Content Management Systems (ECM). Unstructured content grows exponentially, and ECM system helps to capture, store, manage, integrate and deliver all forms of content across the company. Instead of developing, maintaining and running ECM system itself, an organization can access ECM system through the internet. That is the power of cloud computing.
This paper summarizes the benefits and risks of delivering ECM in the cloud according the literature. It is developed an activity diagram of ECM cloud decision process which can help the decision maker to explore the possibilities whether to use cloud or not according to their need and current situation.
Activity diagram is transformed to Petri net to conduct boundness, and liveliness analysis of the model.
Key Words
Enterprise Content Management, Cloud, Activity diagram, Petri net
Introduction
Organizations produce various forms of content. For example text documents, spread sheets, web pages, emails, pictures, even calls. Trend toward telework and virtual teams required that employees are able to digitally access files from a distance (Bentley, Yoong, 2000). Symons and Stenzel (2007) present that effective virtual teams need good communications skills. In response Enterprise Content Management (ECM) has become popular in recent years.
Grahlmann, Hemlms, Hilhorst, Brinkkemper and Amerongen (2011) define ECM as the strategies, processes, methods, systems, and technologies that are necessary for capturing,
creating, managing, using, publishing, storing, preserving, and disposing content within and between organizations.
Dilnutt and Bethwey (2005) observed of the marketplace, exanimated the literature and provide the list of candidate ECM components. The components are for example Document Management, Record Management, Collaboration, Workflow and Imaging. Kunstová (2009) presents that centre of the ECM is Document Management System (DMS), because DMS system provides a central repository of documents and other types of data to other components within the ECM and other enterprise applications.
Since ECM is a relatively new concept within the field of Information systems, little research has been conducted on this subject. Grahlmann at al. (2011) present position of ECM as an information system research field and create functional ECM framework. Grahlmann, Hilhorst, Sander, Helms and Sjaak (2010) present potential impact of ECM implementation.
42% of responding organizations have strategic plans to use some form of 3rd party cloud for content management (AIIM 2012). Although the term cloud is new, its concepts are not new. Cloud computing borrows terms and concepts from other computing paradigms such as utility computing, grid computing, service oriented architecture among others (Vaquero, Rodero-Merino, Caceres, Lindner, 2009). This shows that cloud computing has been in existence in different forms since the beginning of computing, and it can be traced back to early sixties.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, 2011) defines cloud computing as a model for enabling convenient, on demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., network, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five essential characteristics and three service models and four deployment models. The framework of the NIST definition of cloud computing is in the Fig. 1.
1: Cloud computing definition (NIST, 2011)
The organization has to determine the optimal cloud service model: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), or software as a service (SaaS). Once the organization has chosen a service model, it hast to determine the appropriate deployment model (public, private, hybrid, or community).
When using IaaS for the operation of an ECM system the user company rents the computing resources, infrastructure from a cloud service provider. The company can still choose the ECM system and buy the licenses for the software. PaaS cloud model is not good for the provision of an ECM system. Platform services provide resources in a pre-defined software environment that are useful for software development, testing, or the distribution of software but not for the actual operation of an ECM system. In the SaaS cloud model the ECM system (computing resources, infrastructure and software) is provided by the cloud service provider.
ECM systems usually need customization which may eventually require a private cloud where one instance of the program is individualized for a specific company. Another reason for private cloud is that ECM system needs to be integrated with other application within the organization. In some cases, the ECM system in the cloud also needs to store information in specific country locations, not anywhere, due to legal restrictions.
While cloud computing is becoming more trusted solutions for corporate initiatives, many decision makers are still on the fence when it comes to using them for ECM, especially
in high-tech, high-security industries such as aerospace, military and government (NexPrise, 2010).
Kunstová (2008) discusses the differences between ECM and other business application in relation with cloud computing. ECM systems are specifics because of many factors. The main factor is that ECM systems manage unstructured data. The activities associated with managing unstructured data are not standardized and are not subject of transaction processing. It is difficult to find standardized solution that would meet the needs of several clients.
Another problem is that ECM covers a wide range of components and thus applications and technologies. Organization can have only one application (software) to cover all components or may have many applications which need to be integrated with cloud-based solution or need to be converted into a single cloud application.
Cloud computing does not come only with the benefits but it also comes with the challenges that need to be aware of. The advantages and disadvantages are discussed from the business and IT perspective. The list of advantages and disadvantages are in the Tab. I.
I: Advantages and disadvantages of cloud ECM (Authors) Advantages
Faster implementation Reduced IT requirements
Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) in medium term Flexible Payment Models
Lower upgrade costs
Disadvantages
Application integration
Interoperability with internal systems Low customization
Business Process
Release management dictated by provider Standard Contract and SLA
Longer-term TCO uncertainties Low degree of control
Security issues Legal issues
Vendor unreliability
A key benefit of cloud is the ability to rent computing services from a third party provider, rather that owning and maintaining the physical infrastructure. Hardware and
software resources are consumed as a service and consumers pay only for the resources they use (Khajeh-Hosseini, Sommerville, Sriram, 2010). On the other hand cloud provides all the clients with the same functionality and solution does not have to meet business requirements (Vohradsky, 2012).Only low customization can be done and this characteristic does not provide companies a competitive advantage for their business (Vohradsky, 2012). And most of the security and privacy issues in cloud computing are caused by users’ lack of control over the physical infrastructure.
A company has to understand the advantages and disadvantages before taking a decision. A company has to identify the requirements and understand how the ECM application will fit within existing business process and technology infrastructure.
Objectives and methodology
The aim of this paper is to propose and describe the activity diagram of ECM cloud decision process. The diagram can help decision maker. The activity diagram is transformed to Petri net. The result of soundness analyses is presented.
The first step is the literature review and it obtains the necessary knowledge of the concepts. Information from several surveys and studies is used as the start point of the analysis. All the sources used in this article are listed in the bibliography section at the back of the article. Literature review is focused on ECM cloud advantages, disadvantages and analyses of cloud ECM. The list of the advantages and disadvantages of delivering ECM in the cloud is created.
Activity diagram of ECM cloud decision process is suggested according the literature review and interviews with IT managers. Activity diagram is basically a flow chart to represent the flow form one activity to another activity. This flow can be sequential, branched or concurrent. The activity diagram is possible to translate into a behaviourally equivalent Petri net and it is possible to conduct boundness, and liveliness analysis. A Petri net is one of several mathematical modelling languages for the description of distributed systems. A Petri net consists of places, transitions, and arcs. Arcs run from a place to a transition or vice versa, never between places or between transitions.
Agarwal (2013) presented the transition rules. For the paper is needed: transitions from one activity to another activity, transition from one activity to parallel activities (using fork), transition from two parallel activities to one activity (using join). Transition rules are presented below.
2: Transitions from one activity to another activity (Agarwal, 2013)
3: Transition from one activity to parallel Activities (Agarwal, 2013)
4: Transition from two parallel activities to one activity (Agarwal, 2013)
Enterprise Architect and WoPed are used. Enterprise Architect is an UML analysis and design tool and supports business process model, use case model or activity model. WoPeD is an easy-to-use software tool for editing, simulating and analysing workflow nets as well as plain place-transition Petri nets (Eckleder, Freytag, 2009).
Results
According to advantages, disadvantages of cloud ECM and interviews with IT managers is developed activity diagram of ECM cloud decision process and activities are described. The activity diagram is in the Fig. 5. The result of activity diagram is economics and risk analyses
which will help the decision maker to explore the possibilities whether to implement cloud computing or in-house ECM system.
BPEL BPELProcess1
Start
Find ECM cloud vendors.
Determine if ECM activities are core.
Conduct economics and risk analyses.
Determine if ECM processes should own the company.
Determine if ECM is business critical application.
Determine if ECM infrastructure should own the company. Consider level of customization.
Consider need of integration with other application.
Define Impediments to cloud adoption.
Determine changes to organization procedures. Determine SLA and Backup
requirement.
Determine if ECM processes include sensitive data. Define impediments to
cloud.
5: Activity diagram of ECM cloud decision process (Authors)
One of the risks of outsourcing is vendor lock in. Company has to carefully select cloud provider and should find at least two available ECM cloud provider. The vendor selection criterions have to be set up. It has to be control if the cloud provider is able to offer all ECM components that are required.
Company has to consider level of customization and cloud ECM vendor has to clarify how customization will be implemented and the cost of the customization. Although customization is limited, some level of customization is still possible.
As it is mention in the previous text, disadvantage for cloud is the low level of integration with other applications. Company has to understand dependencies and integration needs. ECM system is very often integrated with Enterprise Resource Planning, Customer Relationship Management or Business Intelligence.
Company has to determine if activities in ECM system are core, if ECM system is business critical and determine changes to organization procedures. Core competencies distinguish a company from its competitors. They are activities that offer long-term competitive advantage and must be invested in, controlled, and protected. Thus, for a firm to keep its competitive advantage, the core activities should be kept in-house.
Business-critical application is an application that is essential in the business process. System failure leads to lost revenue, customer dissatisfaction, or lost productivity. If ECM business process or application is customer facing or drives revenue, it is business critical. The company has to be more cautious. This ECM application cannot afford down-time whether it is for planned maintenance or the result of an unexpected outage. The right choice of architecture can allay many of concerns. According to it we have to set up requirement on availability of the support, escalation procedures, and detailed process to address requests for changes. The company has to also determine level of backup and requirement on disaster plan or business continuity plan.
Company has to impediments to cloud and impediments to cloud adoption. Impediments to cloud are for example industry-specific location risks and legislation issues. Impediments to cloud adoption can be for example SLA performance is not acceptable.
Company has to decide if want to own the process and infrastructure, has the responsibilities to maintain the IT infrastructure by themselves. If company does not want, then cloud is good option.
Company has to know if ECM system contents sensitive data such protected health information, institutional or personal financial records, academic records, or research data and if the company is willing to have this sensitive data be stored outside the firewall. The company has to find out how the security and protecting rules are in and around the computer sites. Therefore it is important for customer to check in advance whether the cloud provider is compliant with applicable governance (such as HIPAA, Sarbanes Oxley or SAS 70 certification).
Outputs of previous activities become input into economic analysis and risk analysis. To perform economic analysis, company has to find difference between the in-house production cost and the cost of cloud computing. A positive difference indicates that the in-house cost is greater than the cloud cost, thus cloud computing is a better option. A negative difference indicates that producing in-house is a better option. Company should identify the cost elements of cloud computing and in-house production.
It is necessary to identify the risks associated with the ECM cloud. Gather information from a variety of relevant data sources and stakeholders within the organization. It can be used for example Cloud ECM model (Klegová, 2013). After that risks have to be analysed. It has to be determined likelihood and impact for every identified risk. Risks should then be prioritized and evaluated.
Activity diagram is translated to Petri net. Petri net is in the Fig. 7. Semantic analyses are conducted. Result is in the Fig. 6. The workflow analysis does not show any errors of basic elements. Petri net is valid. The soundness analysis checks the boundedness, liveliness and well-structuredness.
Conclusion
Enterprise Content Management provides a platform for secure management of all structured and unstructured content across the enterprise. Seeing the benefits of “renting” software, corporations are increasingly using content management in the cloud.
We analysed and surveyed several information resources. Based on the results of a literature study, we described advantages and disadvantages of ECM cloud computing. According literature study and interviews with IT managers we proposed the activity diagram of ECM cloud decision process and described activities.
The activity diagram was translated into a behaviorally equivalent Petri net and was conducted boundness, and liveliness analysis.
References
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