FileNet P8 Enterprise Content Management Solutions
Summary
FileNet P8 represents a new architecture for content management, business process management and application integration. It will appeal to enterprises that have settled on Java as their standard.
Table of Contents Overview Architecture Functional Suites Migration Strategy Analysis Pricing Competitors Strengths Limitations
Recommended Gartner Research Insight
List Of Tables
Table 1: Specifications
Corporate Headquarters
FileNet Corp.
3565 Harbor Boulevard
Costa Mesa, CA 92626-1420, U.S.A. Tel: +1 714 966 3400
Fax: +1 714 966 3233 Internet: www.filenet.com Overview
FileNet P8 is the firm’s new underlying platform architecture to support development of enterprise content management (ECM) applications and represents a unification of FileNet’s previous BrightSpire, Acenza, Panagon and Web content management (formerly eGrail) offerings. P8 provides the framework for building and deploying content management applications and for application integration.
Architecture
FileNet P8, an ECM application development framework, is built on an n-tier architecture that fully leverages the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) standard. FileNet P8 consists of integrated software components, a Web application and a single application programming interface (API) set for developers. At the core of P8 are content and process engines. Content can be stored in the database, in a repository or in file systems. It supports common object models so that multiple applications can work with the same content at different stages of its life cycle.
FileNet provides access to all content and process management functionality through a single, Web-based user interface, called Workplace. Workplace can be used out of the box or customized. FileNet provides more than 30 different user preferences and 40 site preferences for customizing Workplace. Functional Suites
FileNet offers four prepackaged, functional suites built on the P8 architecture and designed to provide enterprises with flexible entry points into enterprise content management. The suites are Content Manager (CM)—for managing, sharing and accessing documents or other forms of content; Business Process Manager (BPM)—for automating complex business processes; Web Content Manager (WCM)— for automating the creation, approval and publishing of content to Web sites and for and managing Web sites; and Image Manager—for managing and retrieving high volumes of fixed content, including images, faxes and rich media. FileNet CM is the core suite; WCM and BPM are applications that leverage CM and provide additional capabilities tailored to business use. Image Manager is a separate Microsoft .Net offering that can be integrated with the other suites through the FileNet Image Services Resource Adapter (ISRA), a bidirectional Java adapter. The four suites can be purchased as a cohesive suite or individually. Turning them on or off is simply a software licensing issue. Customers can expand the capabilities of each suite by adding specific modules and components.
FileNet BPM, CM and WCM suites consist of J2EE application and system components that run on J2EE application servers. They share the Workplace client interface, a single back-end administration tool and repository.
Content Manager (CM)
CM provides core integrated document management capabilities, including two-level version control and content-based search capabilities. It provides low-to-mid-volume imaging capabilities, with images being just another object type to be stored and managed within the repository. It addresses all aspects of content management from creation to archival. CM was designed around the concept that all documents have a life-cycle policy that determines their behavior, defines their states and dictates actions on those states. In addition, CM includes document approval workflow and an event-driven architecture as core features.
Web Content Manager (WCM)
Based on CM suite core functionality, WCM adds site management and content deployment capabilities. It is designed to automate the creation, approval, and publication of Web content and provides rich template capabilities. The WCM application is written in Java and Enterprise Java Beans (EJB). It runs on the J2EE application server. It inherits and uses all of the underlying capabilities of the Content and Process Engines, including the event-driven architecture.
Business Process Manager (BPM)
The BPM suite is designed for process-centric applications and leverages the core content management capabilities. It allows enterprises to automate, streamline and rapidly deploy or modify business processes. Additional capabilities include advanced analytics and process simulation.
Image Manager
A separate, but integrated product, Image Manager is designed for high-volume, document imaging applications. Image Manager is based on a different architecture, Microsoft .Net, with a separate set of add-ons. It provides its own repository that is optimized with caching and pre-fetching capabilities to accommodate large volumes of image documents and report data. Image Manager is based on Image Services and Web Services.
Migration Strategy
The FileNet P8 suites—CM, WCM and BPM—are new products that leverage the new Java-based architecture. Customers of existing FileNet products are not entitled to automatic upgrade to P8. For existing customers that wish to take advantage of the J2EE architecture and added functionality in the new suites, FileNet will offer migration tools for moving content from a Panagon Content Services repository to CM and for porting client customizations. It will also provide tools for WCM customers who wish to move to Java (from Perl) and migrate their WCM repositories.
FileNet will continue to support existing clients that do not migrate to the new architecture and suites. The firm plans to continue marketing, enhancing and supporting Content Services, Image Services, eProcess Services, Report Manager, and Capture Professional and Capture Desktop.
Table 1: Specifications
Product Type Content management software. Date Announced 21 January 2003.
Architecture Distributed, n-tier architecture. Uses a Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) application server and a Web browser client.
Table 1: Specifications Server Platforms
Supported
• Content Manager (CM), Web Content Manager (WCM) and Business Process Manager (BPM): Microsoft Windows NT and 2000, Sun Solaris
• Image Manager: Windows NT and 2000, IBM Advanced Interactive Executive (AIX), Hewlett-Packard’s Unix-based operating system (HP-UX), Sun Solaris Application Servers CM, BPM and WCM are certified to run on the BEA WebLogic application server.
BPM and CM are also certified to run on IBM WebSphere. Databases
Supported
Microsoft Structured Query Language (SQL) Server and Oracle.
Standards Supported HTTP, XML, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), J2EE, and Web Digital Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV).
System
Administration Tools
System administration can be performed on the Web through the Workplace interface. The administrator defines user and group privileges for access to content and work item processing.
System Security FileNet P8 and the packaged suites leverage the security capabilities of the underlying operating system. It uses Windows Active Directory for managing users and groups and for authentication, but also works with other Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory services. In addition, FileNet P8 uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for encryption.
Native Language Support
English, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Polish, Simplified Chinese, Czech, Japanese, Italian and Finnish. Content can be stored in the user’s native language. User Interface Workplace is a full-function, zero-footprint, browser-based client that uses Java
Server Pages (JSP) for the CM, WCM and BPM suites. Application Development
Development Tools FileNet provides a Java API for application developers. It provides a programmatic interface to the Content Engine and Process Engine. Custom applications can also be developed using Solution Templates.
Solutions Templates Designed for specific industry applications and horizontal uses, such as Case Management, Solution Templates are a collection of reusable code, process maps, forms, class definitions, search templates, user interfaces and documentation. FileNet will provide several Solutions Templates for specific business uses. FileNet developers can use the Solution Templates to build custom applications.
Application Integration
General FileNet provides capabilities for integrating its P8-based products with other applications and with its own repository offerings. Integration options include FileNet’s Image Services Resource Adapter; Content Services Java Connector; a partner’s pre-built connector product; IBM WebSphere business integration (formally CrossWorlds); and Content Provider for FileNet P8 Workplace (sourced from Venetica). Integration is also available through Java, COM, XML or Web Services approaches included in the FileNet P8 suites via the Component Integrator/EAI Framework.
Table 1: Specifications
Portal Integration FileNet P8 includes a Portal Integration Framework, which has been used to develop out-of-the-box portlets for BEA WebLogic Portal 7.0 and IBM WebSphere Portal. BEA Portlets include Process Management Portlets (for views of user in-boxes and public queues) and Content Management Portlets (such as, browse, author and search). Additional out-of-the-box portlets are planned for SAP, Plumtree and others. FileNet partners and customers can also used the framework to connect to other portals.
ERP/CRM Integration
Through its connector strategy, FileNet supports integration between the Image Manager and Content Manager repositories and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools from SAP and Siebel. FileNet provides additional integration options through an optional Enterprise Application Integration server, which is based on IBM’s WebSphere Integration (formerly CrossWorlds).
Integration Engine FileNet provides an optional Enterprise Application Integration server based on IBM’s WebSphere Integration (formerly CrossWorlds). This server provides lightweight Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) capabilities. FileNet has out-of-the-box integration with any major ERP, Human Resource Management and CRM application through the EAI framework. In addition, FileNet supports other EAI tools including those from Vitria and SeeBeyond. It also integrates with the iLog Inference Engine.
Table 2: Features and Functions Content Management
Content
Creation/Capture
The CM, WCM and BPM suites allow users to capture or import content through several methods. It integrates with standard content-authoring tools, such as Macromedia Dreamweaver, Microsoft Office, Microsoft FrontPage and Lotus Notes through WebDAV support. With the Workplace interface, users can add content through contribution templates. Through the optional FileNet Capture Desktop, paper documents can be captured and imported as scanned images.
FileNet Capture Desktop
Through the Panagon Capture Desktop option, scanned images, inbound
facsimiles, electronic text, drawings, HTML forms, photographs and video data can be captured for input into the Content Manager repository. Document capture processes include scanning, automated batch and document separation, document assembly, bar code recognition, image enhancement, forms ID and quality
assurance. Capture Desktop can merge multiple Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) or a combination of JPEG and Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) images into a single file. It supports distributed processing, enabling scanning, indexing and more, to be implemented on separate workstations.
Library Services The FileNet P8 ECM application development framework as well as the CM, WCM and BPM suites provide core library services, including document in/out, version control and document-level security. The platform supports check-in/check-out of both structured and unstructured content. Version control provides support for major versions (1, 2, 3 and more) and minor versions (1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and others) of single documents.
Table 2: Features and Functions Content Management
Access Control Access to content and P8 resources is controlled via server-enforced security. Username and password are required. Based on an access control list (ACL), the following access levels are assigned to each user and group: none, viewer, author, owner and administrator. Access rights can be set to the object or file store level (repository), the folder level, and down to the object level, including annotations, templates, documents and workflows. Default access rights can be defined for each class of object. It provides seven levels of privileges:
• Owner • Promote Version • Modify Content • Modify Properties • View Content • View Properties • Publish Organization/Navigat ion
The FileNet P8 ECM application development framework as well as the CM, WCM and BPM suites provide a user-definable folder structure for organizing content. They support subfolders. Subfolders can inherit the properties and security features of the parent folder.
Indexing The FileNet P8 ECM application development framework as well as the CM, WCM and BPM suites support full-content indexing and property indexing (text, Boolean, integer, date/time, multivalue properties, controlled value properties and more). Classification FileNet provides document class and metadata classification. In addition, it offers an
XML Classifier as part of the CM, WCM and BPM suites. This serves as an extensible framework for automatically assigning document classes and property values. Through the XML classifier plug-in, it can parse XML content to determine its document class and properties, reclassify documents in the repository, and utilize Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) transforms.
Content Viewing FileNet provides a browser-independent image viewer. Compound
Document Management
The FileNet P8 ECM application development framework as well as the CM, WCM and BPM suites support compound document management in Microsoft Office, FrameMaker and Arbortext applications. Content can have dependent and
independent associations. Associations can be one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-one.
Linking Features The CM, WCM and BPM suites support uniform resource locator (URL) style linking, either statically to an exact version or dynamically to the latest version. It also enables Object Linking and Embedding (OLE)-style linking.
Search and Retrieval Supports both content and property searching. FileNet embeds the Verity K2 engine for full-text indexing and content searching. It supports cross-repository searching. Renditioning The Content Manager and Web Content Manager suites include a renditioning
engine for HTML and Portable Document Format (PDF), rendering from more than 150 document formats, including Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, Quark and others. Documents can also be transformed into Extensible Markup Language (XML). Events/Subscriptions A transaction event triggers the use, creation and management of content and
Table 2: Features and Functions Content Management
Workflow The FileNet CM and WCM suites include two types of workflow out-of-the-box: 1) A simple document review and approval workflow with a fixed number of pre-defined steps, and 2) a sequential routing workflow where the workflow designer can specify the number of steps and can select the participants for each step. Both suites can provide more advanced workflow capabilities through a license upgrade.
Web Content Management
Content Creation All Web Content and Publishing capabilities are template-driven. Single content elements can be published into multiple layouts (Web view, printer-friendly and others) and into multiple formats (PDF, HTML, Wireless Markup Language [WML], XML, Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML], Wireless Application Protocol [WAP], Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language [SMIL] and others). Users can use any editor to create and manage templates and layouts.
Versioning and Rollback
FileNet WCM provides granular revision control at the component level, not just the page level.
Staging FileNet WCM supports any number of staging and production server levels. Content Delivery An Automatic Link Navigation capability builds and maintains links between content
sources and Web pages.
Workflow FileNet WCM uses the FileNet Process Engine to manage its workflow. Process Management
General The BPM suite provides rich business process management capabilities and includes process analysis and process simulation capabilities.
Process Design Processes are defined using the Process Designer, a Web-based graphical process definition environment. Processes are created as an XML document. They can also be edited directly in XML in accordance the with the published Document Type Definition (DTD). Process definitions can be reused. Processes can also be built programmatically via the extensive API.
Process Simulation The BPM suite includes simulation functions. It supports what-if analysis, activity-based costing, defined resource pools and animated simulation replay.
Analytics and Reporting
The BPM suite includes the Process Analyzer, a complete analysis engine based on online analytical processing (OLAP) technology. Sample reports are provided out-of-the-box for the following: monitor productivity, cycle time, queue load and work in progress. It also supports what-if analysis, activity-based costing and defined resource pools.
Analysis
Since its inception in the early 1980s, FileNet has been known primarily for its integrated document management (IDM) suite of products. With an installed base of over 3,800 systems (all products) worldwide, it has been one of the market leaders in production imaging and document-centric workflow applications. FileNet has a strong vertical focus, targeting financial services, insurance and government applications. In addition to its own professional services organization, FileNet has a global network of 160 partners that implement FileNet solutions and build vertical applications on its underlying content and process management framework.
From a product perspective, FileNet’s focus is on enterprise content management and business process management—together, FileNet views these as Extended ECM. FileNet P8 represents the convergence of imaging, document management, Web content management and other technologies into a cohesive solution. One of the key areas that differentiates FileNet’s ECM offering is an extensive BPM capability underlying the core ECM components. FileNet is driven by the concept that content becomes an active participant in a business process. Business and transaction events trigger the use, creation and management of content and associated processes. FileNet also has embraced the concept of virtual content; it has a strong content and application integration focus, and through a partnership with Venetica, it offers content bridges to connect to other repositories. FileNet resells Venetica’s repository bridges as an extension to its Virtual Content Management (VCM) Framework, which is native to FileNet P8.
With the introduction of P8, FileNet is embracing both the Java and .Net camps. The FileNet P8 suites— CM, WCM and BPM—are J2EE-based products, while FileNet Image Manager, Content Services, Image Services and eProcess Services are Microsoft-based offerings. While this dual product strategy enables FileNet to support its existing client base and appeal to new customers, it is fraught with challenges. FileNet must now dedicate resources and revenue to supporting and developing multiple products, and it must clearly articulate the positioning of its product lines so as not to confuse existing or potential customers. FileNet targets net new customers and those that have standardized on Java as their strategic platform with P8 and its functional suites. Its other repository offerings are designed for Microsoft-centric environments; however, they lack some of the functionality offered in the new suites. This is especially true with Content Services, which lacks out-of-the-box workflow. Existing and potential FileNet customers will need to understand the trade-offs.
FileNet recently acquired e-forms vendor and former partner, Shana Corp., and has re-branded its solution, FileNet Forms Manager. FileNet Forms Manager and FileNet eForms are .Net solutions. FileNet eForms is currently integrated with FileNet eProcess, Content Services and Image Manager. FileNet plans to integrate FileNet eForms with the P8 suites—CM, WCM and BPM. The ability to offer native e-forms capability is a plus for the company.
Pricing
FileNet offers two pricing models: user-based and CPU-based. Annual maintenance is approximately 15 percent to18 percent of the total software cost.
In the user-based environment, FileNet charges a server license and user licenses. The server licenses are based on use case, either Development, a nonproduction system; Departmental, a production system limited to 75 concurrent users; and Enterprise, a production system with 75+ concurrent users. The user licenses are required in the user-based model. FileNet defines three types of user licenses: Dedicated Users (1-to-1 usage ratio), Concurrent Users (up to 10-to-1 usage ratio), and eBusiness Users (up to 100-to-1 usage ratio). Within this model, FileNet allows customers to mix different types of licenses.
FileNet also offers a CPU-based licensing model in which there are three license categories: Development, Workgroup and Enterprise. The Development license is limited to nonproduction environments. Workgroup and Enterprise differ in the number and types of CPUs depending on the base configuration. Additional CPUs can be added to both the Workgroup and Enterprise CPU base packages as application demands dictate.
Prices for initial implementations of Content Manager (CM) or Web Content Manager (WCM) are about US$125,000 each. Initial implementations of Image Manager and Business Process Manager (BPM) cost about US$250,000, each.
Yes.
Competitors
FileNet’s primary competitors in the document and content management space include Documentum, Hummingbird, IBM, Open Text and Stellent. Of these vendors, IBM and Documentum represent the most direct competitors from a functional standpoint as well as from an installed-base perspective. Open Text and Hummingbird, while competitors for low-to-midrange document imaging and general-purpose document management applications have long focused on collaborative and knowledge management applications. FileNet has traditionally been stronger at high-volume document imaging (over 50,000 images per day) and transaction-oriented applications (such as, claims processing, mortgage loan processing) with a heavy process management focus.
Documentum
FileNet and Documentum have long been head-to-head competitors in the integrated document management market. In addition, FileNet’s acquisition of eGrail brought them into direct competition in the Web content management space. Documentum has built its own Web content management capabilities to extend the core Documentum 4i and 5 platforms. Documentum has become a significant WCM player and a leader in the movement that seeks to combine document management and WCM seamlessly. FileNet’s P8 architecture and its packaged suites bring these two rivals into an even fiercer struggle. One of Documentum’s key strengths lies in its content management capabilities and its ability to support the entire content life cycle from creation through to archival and even final destruction. In P8, and its packaged suite approach to content management, FileNet has begun to cohesively address content life-cycle management.
When competing against other vendors in the traditional integrated document management space, Documentum has the advantages of a distributed architecture with federated repositories, sophisticated compound document management and rendition capabilities, digital asset management capabilities, and XML support. It has historically been weaker with regard to fixed content management and has lacked support for enterprise report data. While its workflow capabilities are robust for the applications it addresses, it does not provide simulation or analytics capabilities. Documentum 5 is designed to manage documents and objects to a very granular level for reuse; individual components can be checked out and used to create new documents. Documentum is best known for its distributed architecture, content replication and strong compound/virtual document management capabilities. It has been very focused on compliance applications (regulatory compliance) in manufacturing, pharmaceutical and government. To further extend the broad enterprise content management capabilities delivered with Documentum 5 and to build out its product portfolio to move toward a smart enterprise suite (SES), Documentum made two strategic acquisitions in the fall of 2002: collaboration vendor, eRoom, and records management vendor, TrueArc (formerly Provenance Systems). One of TrueArc’s strengths was in e-mail records management compliance. The TrueArc technology has been re-branded Documentum Records Manager. The eRoom acquisition enables Documentum to address the ad hoc, work-in-process segment of the content life cycle in addition to the structured management and approval process. Team Manager and the eRoom product suite have been rationalized as part of the integration process and are now known as Documentum eRoom Enterprise. While eRoom and Documentum 5 are still separate offerings and repositories, Documentum offers bundled pricing for the two and has completed the first steps toward integration. eRoom Enterprise provides access to Documentum files, folders and cabinets within the eRoom environment. A future release of eRoom Enterprise (planned for year-end 2003), will enable bidirectional integration between eRoom and Documentum 5.
FileNet, conversely, lacks capabilities for digital asset management, certified records management with Department of Defense (DOD) 5015 compliance and project team support.
Hummingbird
FileNet has traditionally competed with Hummingbird for providing enterprisewide document management capabilities. Hummingbird Enterprise is the umbrella name for its information management suite of products that includes portal, document management, business intelligence, records management, imaging, search, workflow and collaboration solutions. Individual products comprising the Hummingbird Enterprise suite are Hummingbird Portal, Hummingbird DM, Hummingbird BI, Hummingbird ETL, Hummingbird KM, Hummingbird RM, Hummingbird Imaging, Hummingbird Web Publishing, Hummingbird DM Workflow and Hummingbird Collaboration. Hummingbird began shipping Hummingbird DM version 5.0 in June 2002. The release of Hummingbird DM simplifies the product brand, providing one server-based application with a single, “zero footprint” client that offers the features of both PowerDOCS and CyberDOCS. It is a step in the right direction and positions Hummingbird well for the future. Compared to many of its IDM competitors, Hummingbird has a strong focus on records management. FileNet currently relies on third-party partnerships. While FileNet supports Unix server environments in addition to Windows NT and has moved to support J2EE, Hummingbird DM is currently a Microsoft-centric offering. In the future, Hummingbird intends to support J2EE across the entire Hummingbird Enterprise suite, including Hummingbird DM. In addition, support for Web Services is an important part of Hummingbird’s ongoing technology strategy. Workflow capabilities are currently limited. Hummingbird DM WorkFlow is designed to enable business users to route documents through a review and approval life cycle and is specific to Hummingbird DM.
IBM
Like FileNet, IBM is best known for its production imaging (high-volume, transaction-oriented) capabilities. Its flagship offering, IBM Content Manager, is an integrated document management product and a core component in IBM’s Enterprise Content Management portfolio. IBM Content Manager lets organizations capture, store, manage and distribute all forms of digital content, including scanned paper documents, XML and HTML content, and rich media. In addition, archiving print stream output is an option by integrating Content Manager OnDemand. In 2003-2004, IBM Content Manager and OnDemand will become merged into a single repository.
Since introducing Content Manager in 2000, IBM has enhanced and re-architected the product, making it more attractive and viable as an enterprise solution for a broad range of content management needs. IBM added basic document management functionality, including version control and support for ODMA. Although these capabilities do not put Content Manager on par with the document management features offered by FileNet CM, they do enable IBM to offer customers a one-stop solution for integrated document and content management. IBM Content Manager does not natively provide capabilities for compound document management. It has only very basic library services (document check-in/check-out, version control and document-level security). Another key piece of an overall content management strategy is Web content management capability. IBM’s strategy for WCM thus far has been to partner, rather than to build or buy its own technology. In addition, IBM has announced integration between WebSphere Portal, which includes Web publishing capabilities, and IBM Content Manager. IBM will leverage Content Manager v.8.1 as the repository for the WebSphere Portal Web content publishing capabilities. Content Manager is also integrated to the WebSphere Portal through portlets, enabling users to access all types of content through the portal interface. IBM’s WebSphere Portal Experience package includes Content Manager. In November 2002, IBM acquired a records management vendor, Tarian Software. IBM looks to this acquisition as a means of further extending its enterprise content management portfolio to address
Open Text
Open Text Livelink is a document-centric product that can be deployed quickly without need for extensive customization. In addition to document management services, Livelink provides a strong suite of collaboration tools that includes group calendaring/scheduling features and work routing capabilities. Its support for standards like Java, ActiveX, PDF and HTML make it highly extensible. Livelink was designed for the Internet and Web infrastructure. Livelink does not support integration with Microsoft Exchange repositories at present, and its integration with Lotus Notes/Domino is not bidirectional. Open Text began shipping Livelink version 9.1 in February 2002. This release provided a number of significant enhancements, including improved search capabilities, such as support for Natural Language Queries and clustering of results according to themes, workflow improvements and new add-on modules, including Livelink MeetingZone for real-time collaboration, and Livelink virtualteams.
Stellent
Like Documentum, Stellent has moved away from its document-centric roots into Web content management applications. The firm’s Stellent Content Management System consists of Stellent Content Server, a packaged application for content management, as well as application modules, including Stellent Content Publisher for publishing content to Web sites and Stellent Dynamic Converter for on-demand conversion of native business content to Web-viewable formats. Stellent Content Publisher and Stellent Dynamic Converter are tightly integrated with Stellent Content Server; when used together, they provide an to-end solution for managing content and automating the creation of Web sites. This end-to-end solution addresses seven main functions: Contribution, Native Source Management, Conversion, Web Source Management, Publishing, Deployment and Personalization. Given its document-centric roots, Stellent Content Server is not as good at building Web pages from an assemblage of components—such as products like Interwoven TeamSite and Vignette Content Server, which were designed to address dynamic Web-site creation. Stellent’s challenge is to better handle content as modular components.
Strengths
Distributed, Open Architecture
The FileNet P8’s n-tier architecture is designed around open industry standards and supports geographically distributed environments. Essentially, P8 consists of a set of logical services that can be hosted on one combined server initially. As the enterprise’s requirements change and the workload increases, the services can be distributed and replicated across different servers. It supports scalable hardware and high-availability servers.
Enterprise-Capable Repository
FileNet software is designed to be implemented as an enterprisewide solution. FileNet has a proven track record of supporting customers with large numbers of users and repositories that have been proven to scale to billions of documents. According to FileNet, its average implementation has 500 concurrent users, while its largest implementation has 50,000 concurrent users and supports more than 1 million Internet users and more than 1 billion objects stored in the repository.
End-to-End Solution
FileNet provides an end-to-end solution for life-cycle management of digital content. It integrates with a variety of authoring tools for content creation and provides its own capture software to transform paper
Fully Web-Based
FileNet’s P8-based content and process management both fully support Web architectures. They share a single, zero footprint browser client, Workplace, which provides all client access to the repository services. They support administration over the Web and leverage Internet protocols and standards, including Web Services and WebDAV.
Process Automation Capabilities
FileNet is known for its strong workflow/process management capabilities. It is process- and transaction-focused. FileNet’s workflow capabilities can stand alone. FileNet has had a proven track record in automating human- and document-centric business processes: content, process and connectivity. In P8, FileNet delivers a broad range of process management functionality—from simple document review and approval routing to full-blown business process management with process simulation, analytics capabilities and prepackaged lightweight EAI.
Application Integration Capabilities
One of the primary focuses of the P8 architecture is to support connectivity. FileNet provides strong application integration capabilities through its connectors, portlets and the Component Integrator that is part of the business process management applications. It integrates with SAP and Siebel. In addition, the CM, WCM and BPM suites support WebDAV for integrating with authoring tools and WebDAV-compliant applications. FileNet also supports the concept of Virtual Content Management (VCM) by offering an embedded framework for declaring external services and by offering optional out-of-the-box bridges to other content repositories.
Limitations Database Support
Databases supported are limited to Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle. While these are the most prevalent databases, many enterprises still use other databases such as Sybase. Increasingly, there is demand for supporting IBM’s DB2 as well. FileNet intends to support DB2 in the future.
No Native Support for Digital Asset Management
Although it does manage a variety of content types, including images, rich media, enterprise report data, Microsoft Office files, XML and HTML content, FileNet does not provide native support for digital asset management within its enterprise content management suite. Two of its primary competitors, Documentum and IBM, do provide such support.
Limited Collaboration Capabilities
FileNet only supports collaboration in the context of a business process; it offers a collaboration framework that is exposed through Solution Templates. It does not provide project team support capabilities, threaded discussions or digital workspaces for collaborating on content. FileNet has stated plans to support this capability in the future.
J2EE Application Server Required
FileNet P8 requires a BEA WebLogic or IBM WebSphere application server. While this provides additional functionality and scalability, it also adds an extra infrastructure layer that needs to be supported.
Recommended Gartner Research
“The Smart Enterprise Suite Magic Quadrant for 2003,” M-19-3949
“The 2002 Integrated Document Management Magic Quadrant,” M-16-9036 “The 2002 Web Content Management Magic Quadrant,” M-16-8235
Insight
Organizations looking for an end-to-end solution for managing their business content throughout its life cycle should consider FileNet’s enterprise content management (ECM) solutions. The P8 ECM application development framework as well as Content Manager (CM), Web Content Manager (WCM) and Business Process Manager (BPM) suites will appeal to enterprises that have settled on Java as their standard. Enterprises looking for a single vendor that can address their enterprise content management needs in addition to their process management and connectivity requirements with a unified suite should include FileNet on their shortlist; however, they should keep in mind that there are trade-offs between best-of-breed functionality and the reduced cost of integration possible with a one-vendor approach. The suite vendors must yet prove that the integrated products they offer actually translate into lower total cost of ownership, lower cost of deployment or better overall functionality than the more tactical best-of-breed approach.
