Recap of Momentum 2013 Postings

• Initial Impressions-  EMC World/Momentum
• Day.5 – Migrations and Upgradese to lower costs and unleash the power of emc documentum.
• Day .5 – Energy and Engineering – What’s New and Next – The EPFM Platform
• Day.5  – Life Sciences Migration
• Day 1 – Rick Devenuti Keynote
• Day 1 – Life Sciences D2 Solutions
• Day 1 – Documentum 7.0 Roadmap
• Day 2 – Migrations and Upgrades

Documentum Momentum 2012 compared to Momentum 2013

In our discussions at the show and on the way to the airport, Ellen, clients and I thought this year’s event was very similar to last year’s event and distinguished itself from the first two years under Rick Devenuti’s tenure in that it continued to be very pragmatic.

• EMC World/Momentum 2012 Recap
• EMC World/Momentum 2011 Recap
• EMC World/Momentum 2010 Recap

All of the roadmap sessions confirmed that the short-term commitments stated for last year had been met and focused on what was going to be done in the short term (mostly end of 2013 and early 2014).  Some specific commitments from 2012 that were achieved included:

• Solutions was the big buzzword – We would say Energy and Engineering (EPFM) and Life Sciences are the ones getting the most attention.  Other solutions include Healthcare, Public Sector and Financial Services.  More on solutions later in post.
• D2 4.1 has been released
• xCP 2.0 has been released
• Captiva 7.0 has been released
• D7 has been released  – focused on performance enhancements.  (performance is only for Windows  – 7.1 will address other environments – see Roadmap post for more detail)

We did notice several major changes in IIG personnel that we would say are all positive and both client and partner friendly.  Lots of good discussions throughout the show with some of the veterans of Documentum that confirmed things are changing and improving that left us very encouraged compared to earlier years.

Why aren’t existing client’s upgrading??  EMA to the rescue

From talking with attendees and some of the tone of the presentations, we got the feeling that existing clients are hesitating to upgrade from Webtop to D2/D7. This may be due to level of effort or that they are just hesitant to try the new solution.  We only talked with one North American attendee that was leveraging D2 (but not for production yet) and, during the roadmap session only one attendee raised their hand stating they were on D7 (and not in production yet).

Rick Devenuti stated in his keynote that Documentum Consulting is now offering a migration tool, EMA (Enterprise Migration Appliance) to help with the upgrade.  Rick’s push has been for speed and EMA fits that goal.  In regard to speed, Rick’s major points were:

• If procuring new hardware takes time – talk to us about OnDemand – we can have equipment for you in the cloud it for you today (as much cloud as you like)
• If installing Documentum takes time and is difficult – worked to make it easier to install/deploy
• Building and test takes too much time – D2 and xCP are focused on configure (assume quick) rather than code (assume slow)
• Migration takes too much time – EMA works on the DB level to go faster than through the API

EMC Consulting ran a live migration during the event for one life sciences company.

Good Enough – the delay of the Upgrade

During our discussions with attendees, we see “good enough” as the major impediment for existing customers to upgrade.  Client’s installed production solutions are perceived as “good enough” to not spend for new interfaces or risk the upgrade. Many have upgraded to 6.5 or 6.7 only recently.  Rick correctly pointed out that clients have mentioned “moving from 5.3 to 6.x was such a pain, I don’t want to do that again”.  In looking at upgrading to D2/xCP 2.0, some major issues that make the upgrade WORSE than the 5.3 to 6.x include:

• Change in Object Model – both D2 and xCP 2.0 require a change in object model requiring a migration and transformation of all the objects.  This migration costs money, takes time and was not required for 5.3 to 6.x.
• Significant change in user interface – besides the “configuration is better than coding” and some improvements in the interface, most clients look at D2 and don’t see an obvious or substantial difference in function or performance from their Webtop installs.  New interface will require retraining of users, something that was also required from 5.3 to 6.x but was not substantial.
• New interface costs – the new interfaces requires new purchase of software.  Webtop seats transferred from 5.3 to 6.x but will not to D2 or xCP.
• Loss of function – while clients might say “configure don’t code”, we still see clients holding on to their customizations.  How does a system owner answer a user that has a function, from customization, in their existing environment, that won’t be in the new system?  How do you tell a user that, after we spend this time, effort and money to get you to the new system you won’t be able to do things that you used to do before the upgrade?

For all of the above reasons, clients seem to be staying put on a “good enough” Documentum and Webtop solution.  This isn’t necessarily all bad as, for all the reasons above, we haven’t seen clients moving to SharePoint, something that many analysts predicted with the release of SharePoint 2010.  SharePoint was barely mentioned during Momentum as we see it continue to fade as a true Documentum alternative for a host of reasons.

We applaud Documentum’s effort to address the desire of users to stay on their existing environments given these facts, and, as mentioned with Webtop 6.7 SP2 in the roadmap session, have a method to run Webtop on D7 and upcoming D7.1.

Documentum Upgrade – Speed versus Trust

With the discussions around the speed of EMA and Rick’s other points from the keynote, we think a bigger underlying issue with existing long-term Documentum clients and the upgrade is trust rather than speed.  To illustrate, we had this conversation with one long-time Life Sciences customer.

“Over the last 15 years, Documentum has introduced DCM and a regulatory submission manager, announced moving away from DCM and submission manager, reannounced a new DCM,  announced that they are moving away from DCM and advised us we should go to FirstDocs, and now they are announcing a Life Sciences suite that requires Documentum consulting and going after FirstDocs?”

The client in question also went through a very aggressive software audit in the last five years.  Documentum customers have long memories and turning around the trust issue, particularly when it comes to spending money on new software and Documentum Consulting, will be a significant issue for existing customers.  Net promoter scores was something Rick was particularly focused on in 2010 and needs to continue to focus on to win back client’s trust.

We would predict Documentum would have better success with new customers that are in initial purchase decisions and don’t have the baggage of previous Documentum relationships.

TSG Thoughts – Documentum Solutions

Gearing to Rick’s Keynote, we spent most of our time focused on understanding the solutions rather than individual product updates.  Our thoughts are we can review D2 4.1 and xCP 2.0 on our own.  Look for posts in the upcoming months as we review more products.

Some high level thoughts on the solutions:

• Energy and Engineering – We thought this solution was the most mature and was obviously developed with clients by consulting, particularly in Europe.  See our post on Day .5.  Major updates to D2 and xCP 2.0 coming and addition of Trinity to consulting team should help with more business knowledge to Documentum Consulting which has struggled in the past with this industry.
• Life Sciences – This is the solution that seems to be getting the most amount of push from Documentum.  See our posts  in regards to Migration and Solution.  This is industry that struggles with both “good enough” and trust as mentioned earlier in this post. Additionally, this industry tends to be slower to implement a new solution due to the large validation efforts required with any new release.  Documentum will probably have to buy/invest in a significant marque client to see this industry move in mass to their solution.
• Healthcare – Rick announced integration with Epic in the keynote for this industry.  We recently had a client in Health Care that discontinued using Documentum to move to Epic’s module for patient records.  We see ECM as an uphill climb here as most of the Healthcare systems have a module for records.  Some of the strengths of ECM, (check-in/check-out, security, enterprise search) are not necessary for Healthcare records.  We see this as an uphill struggle for Documentum as they can’t compete with Epic or others on the data portion of the solution which will dominate the decision process.
• Public Sector and Insurance – both of these areas were pretty light in both the keynote and agenda so we will skip any analysis here.

Other Thoughts

• We didn’t put much time into Syncplicity review.  Jeetu has made some advances but we choose to put more time into core Documentum reviews based on feedback from clients.  It seems from the presentations that IIG has had some success with Syncplicity but we haven’t had those opportunities yet at our clients.
• As mentioned already, we didn’t put much time into D2 4.1 or xCP 2.0 as we are currently testing in our labs.  Look for more posts on both in the future.
• SharePoint Integration – SharePoint was a big deal back in 2010 for Rick, but less and less every year.  We see consistently that SharePoint usage is declining at our clients and don’t see it as a alternative to Documentum.
• Mobile Interface – not so much this year.  Again, clients are thinking about and we expect traction soon but “good enough” can get in the way of new.  Syncplicity also plays in this space and might fit certain user scenarios better.

TSG Product Direction Alignment

We always look for the EMC World announcements to shape our own open source product strategy regarding Documentum.  After EMC World and discussions with clients, our strategy, particularly with clients that are focused on “good enough” is to offer products and solutions that can be used to make “good enough” solutions better with additional items.  We think the EMC offerings can coincide with some of our offerings specifically:

• Solutions – we will continue to offer streamlined Documentum or Alfresco solutions for Regulated Industries, Insurance, Engineering, Forms and Digital Archival/Retrieval.
• OpenMigrate – we will continue to offer a migration tool as open source to allow clients to use internally for a variety of migration needs including migration.  We see EMA from Documentum specifically focused on upgrading to D2 and limited to only being a Doucmentum consulting offering.  We will be offering a migration path to D2 as it becomes more widely accepted by the Documentum user community.
• ActiveWizard  – to augment Webtop, D2 or allow for streamlined dynamic form and workflow capabilities.  We have recently added the ability to leverage Activiti workflow with Documentum repositories.
• High Performance Interface (HPI) – to provide an alternative open source alternative for Documentum authors, approvers and consumers.
• OpenOverlay and OpenAnnotate – to provide open source tools for PDF annotation and overlays.

We remain committed to offer our products and solutions on either Alfresco or Documentum (via OpenContent) to provide flexibility and alternatives as well as speed our own internal development with a variety of customers.

Summary- Continued Pragmatic Approach

In talking with different attendees, particularly ones that came in 2012, everything was very similar to (even Momentum Lounge furniture).  We didn’t get any attendance numbers but, from the attendance at Rick’s keynote, we would guess somewhere in the 1,000 to 1,500.  We liked that the agenda was tight (even starting Monday afternoon) and well-paced.  Breakouts of Momentum Lounge and separate area for Momentum presentations worked well.  Great networking throughout and everyone was very approachable.

Clients were impressed with the pragmatism of keeping to what was committed to last year.  Clients want consistency from IIG/Documentum and the ability to plan based on how the product is evolving.  We applaud the pragmatic approach from the last two EMC Worlds.  Clients are looking for:

• Less buzzwords from EMC (Big Data) or IT in general (Social)
• Less big press release relationship announcements that fade in months (Box.net, Cisco…)
• More consistency from IIG/Documentum on plans and commitments consistent with client needs

and the last two EMC Worlds have been steps in the right direction.

Migrations and Upgrades: Introducing EMA, the EMC Migration Appliance. With Chris Dyde and Mike Mohen.  This post will present our thoughts on the presentation.

Why the need for EMA?

As we mentioned during Rick’s Keynote yesterday, Documentum is concerned that clients are not upgrading to 7.0 or the new D2 and xCP interfaces.  Significant issue is the need to migrate, given the change in object model from Webtop or xCP 1.0 to D2 and xCP 2.0.  Documentum Consulting’s response is to provide a migration tool, complete with a “counter” showing a live migration during EMC World.

Phasing Out/Marginalizing Webtop, DCM, CenterStage and eRoom

Presentation began with the restating that Webtop, DCM, CenterStage and eRoom are slowing being replaced by new products since there will be no new features in these interfaces.  To get clients to the new interfaces EMA will offer:

• Extract, Transform & Load
• Reporting
• Validation
• Cloning Scripts that take a DB (from one platform to another, etc.)
• Sizing Spreadsheet
• OnDemand Tools

Stat that is presented was 1.2 million documents per hour.  No specific detail on the type of documents, size of docs, renditions, hardware or other components.   EMA is processing at the database level and can preserve Doc IDs, Audit Trails while transforming objects from old object models to new ones

Major Use Cases

• DCM to D2 life sciences
• OnDemand and Cloning
• Webtop to D2

EMA Components

• EMA Cloner
• EMA Migrate
• EMA Morph (used for instances such as migration into D2)
• EMA Replatform
• EMA API – build plugins and extend the tool
• EMA Plugins (File Share, etc.)

EMA Engine

• Java-based
• Uses Spring and Spring Batch
• Web-based user interface
• Uses mongoDB (NoSQL Database)

Migration Options

• < 1 million objects, IIG suggests that users would copy content with data
• > 1 million – Copy all content over in mass at end of migration
• Morph – this is not a migration, but using another utility. This is used when changing document types during migration (i.e. migrating to D2)

DCM to D2 (Morph Tool)

• Would need to use Change Object 3-4 times for each object type and you would lose the data associated with it
• EMA allows migration to by-pass this by going straight to the database

Product, Solution or Tool

EMA is a tool that ONLY Documentum Professional Services Team Uses. Only used as long as PST is engaged.  Once engagement is over, EMA leaves with the team and cannot be used for additional migrations.

From the presentation, EMA can transfer workflows and attached documents.

Presently, EMA migration can only select a cabinet and migrates all the folders under the cabinet and does not provide migration of just certain document type .Future intends to be updated to allow for a DQL statement. If linked to documents in other cabinets, those documents will not be pulled currently.

Some Concerns- is Speed all that is important?

We see some pretty large flaws in regards having it productized including:

• Delta Migrations – Most clients prefer not to be down during the migration.  Our understanding from other presentations was that EMA is a one-shot deal – use it to migrate content once but no Delta change.
• Database Approach – We are concerned that the migration is focused on speed and not accuracy.  Not leveraging the API runs the risk that key components like lifecycle, ACL, folder, TBOs and a ton of other components might not be created (and not verified until the document is accessed).

Also, throughput varies greatly between migrations, which is why we always recommend running benchmark migrations in environments that are as similar to what will be used in the actual migration as possible.  Below are some items which can impact throughput for OpenMigrate migrations that we think would be concerns with EMA as well:

• Number of OM threads
• Average size of native content
• Average size of renditions
• Average number of document versions
• Average number of document renditions
• Inclusion of audit trail information or other related items
• Source server performance capabilities
• Target server performance capabilities
• Physical distance between source and target systems
• Complexity of migration logic
• Existing target system TBOs (this can definitely have a big impact)
• Applying overlays
• Looking up additional information in database tables/repository
• Writing additional information in database tables/repository
• Complex metadata mappings

Summary

EMA is currently a “one and done” migration as part of an upgrade for D2.  We have been recommending that a migration infrastructure is something that clients need and includes other migration needs besides just for upgrades.   Some of concerns in regards to a migration that we are not sure EMA addresses include:

• Ability to repeat the process for ongoing migration needs
• Ability to apply business logic throughout the migration process
• Incorrect assumption that all migrations are the same
• Ability to address documents/data that failed to migrate
• Ability to repeat the process for different data sources

Migration consultants spend most of their time understanding the current data and setting up the migration - defining transformations, locating exceptions, modifying migrations to handle exceptions, etc.  Faster migration time is always nice, but the time spent executing the migration is a small fraction of the overall project.  Typically consultants not only review migrated data from the backend (typically the way technical IT folks want to verify a migration) but to review migrated data and content using the front end user interface (Webtop, D2, etc.) in the source and target system. Migration and transformation requirements are often missed when only reviewing the migrated data and content from the backend. The EMA solution is so focused on moving back-end database rows, we would recommend our clients confirm there is a detailed review of the migration results from the front end interface.

Lastly, as a tool that can only be used with professional services, clients should evaluate EMA versus other migration solutions, based on their trust and confidence in the consulting resources that will leverage the tool and assigned to the project.

Let us know your thoughts below:

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.

Let us know your thoughts below:

Tuesday @ 11:30 – Life Sciences: Compliance, Productivity and Secure Collaboration

Tuesday @ 2:30 – Life Sciences: What’s New & Next – EMC Documentum Life Sciences Solution Suite Roadmap

Life Sciences D2 solutions

• Quality and Manufacturing Solution (Q&M)
  • originally released in May/June 2012
  • Q&M 2.0 to be released in the next few weeks
• Electronic Trail Master File (eTMF)
  • 2.0 to be released in the next few weeks
• Submissions D2 Solutions
  • Coming Later this year
• R&D D2 Solution
  • Coming later this year

D2 Solutions Built with Interoperability Layer

EMC is building a D2 Life Sciences interoperability Layer that contains common functionality that will be used across all D2 life sciences solutions. This interoperability layer.

• Utilizes the DIA and TMF reference models.
• Contains a predefined set of roles
• Includes Part 11 Compliance (Utilizes C2 overlays)
• Predefined Lifecycles
• Other ECM Controls – didn’t elaborate on what this was (I assume versioning starting at 0.1, etc.)
• Integrations – Presenter didn’t elaborate   

The presenter talked about how all of these D2 solutions can co-exist on one repository and would allow content from these different applications to all reside in one repository.  From our experience I wonder if this is a realistic proposal. Typically clients segregate their content based on solution (Submissions, Quality Documents, etc.).

eTMF Solution Highlights

• Can set up trail template that you specify which artifacts are required or optional for each study (phase 1 trial has different requirements than phase 3 trail)
• Use MS Excel to create template (can be specific based on product, trial, country and site) – creates place holder documents.
• When you update the document in D2, the excel file is auto updated to show the status. (D2 to Excel connector)
• Default auto filing and auto naming rules for artifacts
• Can manage documents across 5 stages
• Role-based views (Trial Managers, Clinical Trial Librarians, clinical Investigators, others)
• Support for Trial Locking – soft and hard
  • Soft Lock – Users can import, but not make documents effective
  • Hard Lock – no new content can be injested
• Web services available to integrate to CTMS apps, etc.

Q&M Solution Highlights

• Only configurations in D2 were done to create this solution. No coding.
• Roles – Authors, coordinators, reviewers, approvers, auditors, etc.
• Can set up projects (product related, or site related). Approvers can be automatically applied if a document is assigned to a specific project
• eSigs and Overlays (from C2 product)
• eSignatures can be done from a mobile device
• Solution comes with default Word templates
• Contains the ability for fields in Word (title, Document Number, etc.) will feed the Documentum Properties and therefore the Overlays.
• 4 available Lifecycles. Documents are assigned to one of the lifecycles below.
  • GMP – for review, for approved (QA and other signature required, Pending Release, effective)
  • Review & Approval – Similar to GMP, No QA approval required
  • Self Approval
  • Uncontrolled
• Users with documents marked as “to be read” receive a workflow task to sign off and state that they read and understood the document.

Other Solutions Coming Soon by end of 2013

• R&D
  • No detail provided regarding features of this solution
• Submission Management
  • Link of approved documents to dossier based on predefined template
  • Vesion control of dossier
  • Review and approval of dossier itself
  • Change Mgmt including eCTD sequences (amendments, supplements, etc.)
  • Mgmt of Shared Docs (same docs can be linked to multiple submissions)
  • Submission planning & Tracking (due dates, overdue notifications)
  • Submissions correspondence (Track responses, etc.)
  • Can use with other submission publishing tools
• Submission  Publishing
  • Supports publishing export & review of dossier (eCTD, NEES and paper formats)
  • Supports regional M1 modules and Study Tagging files (STFs)
  • Manages submission sequences through intuitive graphical web interface
  • Cross-references (hyperlinks) support and maintenance
  • Supports the full lifecycle of your electronic submissions
  • No need to export docs. To 3^rd party or file system to publish eCTD
  • Partners to develop other solutions

Other Futures

• Clinical Investigator Portal
  • SaaS upate; xCP based client
  • List of to-do Items
  • Collaboration/Chat
  • Tracking of Trail Stage (need to complete 5 items to get passed enrollment)
• Looking for companies to assist with validating the use cases
• Seriously Considering Development of the following solutions
  • Drug Safety
  • eLabNotebook
  • Medical Device
  • Promotional Materials
  • Call Center

Other Items Mentioned

• EMC Documentum On-Demand offering.
  • EMC engineers can install, maintain, generate validation documentation within your data center or within EMC data center.
  • Syncplicity Use Cases for Life Sciences
    • Q&M – distribution of SOPs to manufacturing floor so they can easily find the subset of SOPs that they need (I tend to think a simple offline search and retrieval app like HPI would work better for this use case)
    • eTMF – drop documents to auditors
    • Note if using Syncplicity, overlays are not dynamically added (they are burned on when document is sent to Syncplicity
    • Documents are not dynamically updated on Syncplicity. if the document is updated in the repository it must be pushed out to Syncplicity again.

Summary

EMC has definitely shown a re-commitment to their original customer base. There is an entire track at EMC World dedicated to Life Sciences.  The D2 solution sounds intriguing, but we still feel have some hesitancy for the following reasons:

• When asked about clients in production, exact numbers were not disclosed.  But it is our understanding  that there are no life science clients currently in production.
• Cost – This feels like an expensive solution. D2 license cost + D2 solution costs + Migration Costs – all of which can only be done with Documentum Consulting
• For better and worse clients have customized Webtop and other slutions. to meet their individual needs. We struggle with mature clients paying the convesion costs and “giving up functionality” for a new release.  While I am sure many of these customizations can be removed with configuration settings , I would wonder what flexibility am I giving up moving to an architecture that doesn’t allow for any flexibility outside of the designed framework and is worth the considerable effort and cost to get there.
• Crowded Market for Some Solutions – Some of these solutions are in already crowded markets. We would recommend waiting to see how these solutions are adopted before jumping on board

Please let us know your thoughts below.

Documentum Enterprise Migration Appliance – Revolutionary Approach to Migration. 

In our discussions after the keynote, we thought the big announcement, as mentioned yesterday was the announcement of EMA – the migration appliance.  Rick stated, pretty much correctly, that for existing customers, the migration from 5.3 to 6 (and before that 5.2.5 to 5.3) was a pain an many don’t want to go through that again.  Rick recognized that many clients are still on old versions of Documentum products.  Inhibitors included:

• Acquire new hardware – Rick would like to address this with OnDemand with cloud provisioned hardware.
• Deployment – worked hard on making D7 easier to deploy
• Build and Test – D2/Xcp focused on configuration instead of coding
• Maintain and Update – EMC is focused on making it easier to support Documentum

EMA (pronounced Emma) was developed to physically move large amounts of data.  Rick mentioned that their team had been working on EMA for 12 Months.  Some interesting points:

• Built for High Performance – 1.2M Objects Per Hour by going to the database layer instead of the API layer.
• First step in the process is the clone the database (discussed during Sobi live migration going one throughout EMC World)
• Preserve Object IDs and Audit Trails – In flight Workflows to maintain integrity

As mentioned yesterday, EMA is not so much a software product as it is a consulting offering.  Documentum Consulting offering a free one week assessment to help customers identify their migration needs (sign-up ends in August).

TSG Thoughts – EMA

After the keynote and yesterday’s presentation, we (TSG) had more than a couple of questions asking our thoughts.  Given our experience with migrations in creating OpenMigrate, what do you think of IIG Consulting’s offering.  Some quick thoughts:

• IIG recognizes the need for migration.  With the object model changing with migration to D2 or xCP, adopters of the new tools will have to migrate their existing content to the new model.
• IIG recognizes the hesitation of their clients to upgrade the application.  D2 has been out for a year.  While we feel it has probably been successful with “green field” or new Documentum installations, clients that are in Webtop environments might be hesitant to upgrade given their previous experience, cost of new tools, cost of migration and overall risk aversion.  Lastly, if Webtop is “good enough”, they might not believe that D2 or xCP are truly worth the effort and risk.

In our discussions with clients familiar with migration after the keynote – some other thoughts:

• Migration is only one part of the upgrade.  The issue with the upgrades from 5.2.5 to 5.3 as well as 5.3 to 6.x that caused clients pain was not the migration (since the object model didn’t change) it was the interface change, getting their Webtop configurations/customizations onto the new Webtop, testing, training along with hardware/database upgrades.
• Given that D2 and xCP require an object model change, the upgrade effort could be ACTUALLY WORSE than 5.3 to 6.0 where an in place upgrade was possible and sometimes common.  D2’s ability to remove the customizations should help remove the interface effort but the integrity of the data changes needs to be confirmed.
• Database Clone versus Delta Migration – One telling point in regards to EMA was that it started with a Database Clone.  This approach would require that the system not be updated (as changes would be lost) while the migration was working on the clone.  We have seen clients be more successful with a initial migration and then a delta migration to avoid significant system downtime.  We are not sure the architecture/approach of EMA allows that type of migration.
• Other components of the Stack – typically the upgrade pushed upgrade of the rest of the application stack.  This can include server, database, web server, annotation, PDF Overlay and all the other components that need to fit.  Given that D2 requires a new overlay, that piece would need to be specifically addressed.
• Other migrations – We have been promoting for quite some time that a true migration infrastructure can be used for more than just upgrades.  This includes imports, exports as well as publishing jobs.  Not sure the approach and ties to Documentum consulting provides for clients to use on their own for ongoing migrations.

We will be posting specifically on other thoughts around migration in later sessions and for the summary.

Productized Solutions

The other interesting component was adding on to last year’s focus on solutions.  The five productized solutions include:

• Energy and Engineering – Rick mentioned EPFM (Engineering, Plant and Facilities Management) – Capital – 1.8 – New release of Asset Operations – 2.0 (not until 2014 on D2)
• Life Sciences – Rick again mentioned the big return to life sciences – Life Sciences Solution Suite – Quality and Manufacturing – announcing Clinical Electronic File Master Trial this year.  (More in later posts)
• Healthcare – Documentum for Healthcare – Medical Image Sharing and Management – Virtual Patient Information Repository.  Rick announced integration with Epic.  (Epic does have competitive product – will try to post more when learn how Documentum differentiates).
• Public Sector – no extra detail here
• Financial Services -  no extra detail here

Rick also highlighted that partners and the partner ecosystem are helping provide 80 additional certified solutions.

TSG Thoughts – IIG Solutions

We counted a total of 33 “solution” references during the keynote.  IIG Solutions need to be viewed as a combination of products and consulting services from IIG.   Clients need to be comfortable with both the software product and consulting resources.  We are starting to hear that clients will have some options besides Documentum Consulting (EPFM mentioned – haven’t heard on Life Sciences yet as it was mentioned that it was single source in a later session).

Other Points from the Keynote

Lots of buzzwords and other points – assuming that the keynote will eventually be on YouTube – view at your own leasure.  Buzzwords included:

• Transformation
• On Demand
• Lower TCO
• Cloud
• Security
• Transform your business with software and cloud solutions that connection information to work.
• Pervasive Governance – Mobile
• Webtop and Taskspace can run on D7 with D6.7 SP2.

Summary

Overall, we would say the keynote was somewhat consistent with Rick’s keynote from last year.  We had predicted that Rick would announce additional consulting purchases (or mention Trinity purchase for energy for Utilities).  We didn’t expect the Migration Appliance to be the big announcement but see the purpose as clients have been hesitant to move to the new tools.   Continued push for solutions/consulting.   Trying to push this out quickly but will try to put a better overall thoughts at the end of the conference.

Let us know your thoughts or analysis below.

Monday @ 2:30 –An Assessment and Migration Strategy for the EMC Documentum Life Sciences Solution Suite

The Monday presentation focused on migrating to D2 and specifically referenced migrations from DCM. ECM IIG is not focused on building new features into DCM and will only be releasing bug fixes.  D2 is their new platform (consistent with last year’s message).  The message was that EMC’s Migration Appliance (EMA – pronounced Emma) should be used to simplify your migration into D2 from DCM, Webtop, etc.  Below are the high-level points:

• This tool does not have a cost to it, but is a services offering.
• It is built using Spring and Spring Batch
• Performs migrations at the database layer so it runs very fast.
• Right now EMC is offering a 1 week migration analysis for free – obviously a push to get people to look at the tool.
• The tool contains the ability to move users, groups, roles and all associated content to an object. It has a report generator component.
• It uses a NoSQL database in the middle when transferring files.
• There is currently not a simulation mode.
• Audience also asked if it had a FirstDocs source adaptor. The response was that they were working on one, but it was not currently available.

Summary

We’ve definitely seen the demand for a migration tool. OpenMigrate is by far our most frequently downloaded open source tool.   We have always said that migrations are a good thing to have consultants do when the migration is a one-time activity.  I’m assuming this tool was developed because EMC needs to get people to move to the D2 platform, and that migration will not be easy since it involves a significant object model adjustment in addition to the typical code migration/rewrite, hardware and middle-ware updates.  But many clients have on-going needs and would want the ability to run future (potentially regular) migrations by doing it themselves and not involving ECM consulting or any consulting each time a migration/bulk import needs to be executed.  Also, there are multiple migration tools on the market – OpenMigrate, Bulldozer, etc. It will be interesting to see where EMC’s proprietary migration tool fits in.

EPFM Platform
We posted last year on the EPFM solution.  I mentioned back then I was surprised it was on Webtop – actually moving away as D2 version was announced.  The solution evolved appears to have evolved from Europe.  Asset Operations 1.0 Features included:

• Support of alternative taxonomy/view of information with faceted search enabling key search use cases.
• Pre-defined security models and roles
• Standardized change workflow and forms for SOPs, Standards ,Guidelines
• As-built document change process
• ISO standard document control compliance
• Rapid assembly of regulatory submissions
• Equipment register for integration to Material and Work Management Systems
• Transmittal delivery services
• Bulk load support
• Brava view/annotation integration
• Integrated Geo-locationservices
• Mobile client

Chris demoed the new release of this product based on D2.

The other offering is Captial Projects.  Announced that the product will be on xCP 2.x.

Roadmap Announcements

• Asset Operations 1.0 – Q3 2013
• Capital Projects  1.8 (Webtop) – Q3 2013
• xChange Site on-premise – Q4 2013
• Asset Operations 1.1 – Q1 2014
• xChange Site SaaS – H1 2014 (believe that is first half of 2014)
• Capital Projects 2.0 – 2014

Summary

We weren’t sure what to think of the EPFM solution as we haven’t seen it deployed at any of our client.   Utility clients that attended the presentation thought the same.  It seems to have had some success in Europe and South America but, based on their was no partner accredited to deliver anywhere but Switzerland, Middle East and Romania.

Also, some concern among existing clients consistent with discussion yesterday in regards to migration being required from their existing Data Models.  Let me know your thoughts below.

David mentioned that this is the first year with a specific track for migrations and upgrades.

• Why Upgrade – Product Innovation, Lower TCO, Enhanced Security and Information Control, Private Cloud Ready
• How to Upgrade– Best practice strategies, EMC Professional Services Assessments, Rapid Success Programs, Intelligent Deployment and Upgrade Tools.
• When to Upgrade– Scheduling Considerations, Support Timelines, Next Steps

In talking with other clients last night (shout out to our mini-utility group dinner), we were slightly questioning the Why Upgrade?  Throughout the presentation, there was not a ton of justification for the Lower TCO (total cost of ownership).  Given that the migration will require money, time, effort and re-training along with potential purchase of new software (D2, xCP) and configuration/validation of that software, we thought it was a stretch to justify lower TCO due to just performance of D7 or the new interfaces involving less customization.

Specifically on the products, David mentioned:

• xCP 2.0:  Dropping WDK, with more extended JavaScript similar to D2.  Bulk of the discussion was on how xCP 2.0 is better than xCP 1.0.  (We Agree)  We would say that it has been a much needed rewrite as we never really liked the whole framework (TaskSpace/WDK) of xCP.  The big push on “not writing code” and “configuration” with a variety of widgits is something clients will have to evaluate on their own.
• Captiva 7.0 – Talked about Production Auto Learning.  Similar to D2 upgrade, we did talk to one Captiva client in the Lounge on how they need to migrate all their configurations/customizations to Captiva 7.0 and were concerned about the effort.
• D2 4.1 –The Power of Configuration.

Major Reasons to Upgrade

• Lower TCO – Scalability, reduced compliance overhead, do more with less for less.  Documentum 7.0 has better Memory Usage and Scalability – presented Graphs and discussions that I will try to post here when released.  Performance is focused on session pooling and session management, memory management and intelligent session management.  Key stat was reduces response time by up to 10x for 200 DFC users. (Benchmark was conducted on Windows Servers – on content server – is the DFC test utility).
• Secured Protection, Faster – High Volume Retention, Faster Encryption, LDAP group Synchronization.
• Enhanced Secuirty with Greater Information Control – FIPS 140-2, Level 1 Compliance, Centralized Key Mangement, 128-bit AES-based Encryption.

Presentation included some discussion on xPlore, GreenPlum and Syncplicity – not sure how this ties into the Upgrade/Migration.  Very consistent typical discussion of the IIG suite and integration between products withinin the IIG suite.  (xCP and Greenplum, D2 and Syncplicity, xPlore and exposing faceted search).    EMC OnDemand – all designed to be optimized for that setting.

How to Upgrade? – Patrick Walsh

Best practice strategies

• Decoupled Clients and Platform – Basically saying that the D6.7 SP2 Client can work on D7 and D6.  Recommending upgrading client and server separately.
• Phased Upgrade Path – This was one of the more interesting and got a lot of questions.  Basically, Documentum would like to leverage D6.7 SP2 as the bridge.  Ability to put either D2 or xCP 2.0 on D 6.7 backend first and then move the back-end to 7.0.

Basic approach

• D6.7 SP1 and earlier clients WILL work with D6.7 SP2 backend
• D6.7 SP1 and earlier clients WIL NOT work with Content Server 7.0
• D6.7 SP2 clients WILL work with D6.7 SP2 backend
• D6.7 SP2 clients WILL work with Content Server 7.

We were slightly concerned that the D6.7 SP1 and newer clients would never work on 7.0.  Need to ask more questions on that and why the limitation (or do some digging ourselves).  Patrick did state that DFC applications that could use the D6.7 SP1 DFC could use the D6.7 SP2 DFC as long as fairly vanilla.

WebPublisher that will work with D7.  Same answer for CenterStage.  No 6.7 SP1 Clients not recommended for Content server 7.

Did see some roadmap slides worth sharing – probably more in later sessions today:

• Webtop 6.7 SP2 – Was 1st Quarter 2014
• DAM and CenterStage – 3rd Quarter 2014
• Rich Media and Centerstage – 4th Quarter this year

My picture was fuzzy but will try to update later.

Upgrade and Migration Stregies.

• Side by Side – Existing solution with older clients with new versions working on 7 – content not being touched.  No interoperability between the content from old and new (xCP 2.0 example mentioned).  New behaviors in the model that xCP 1.0 doesn’t know about.
• Content Interop – Both existing and new solutions share information in the Documentum repository.
• Migration – leverage migration appliance (mentioning next) to newer client technology.

As mentioned earlier, we need more detail, particularly on the Side by Side, on why the newer applications made such a change to the data model.

Free Assessment, D7 Rapid Success Program and Migration Appliance

We thought one of the biggest announcements was the EMC Professional Services Upgrade Assessments.  IIG is offering free one-week Assessment until August 13th in regards to migration.

D7 – Rapid Success Programs- Limited enrollment space.  Space is limited.  Enhanced support from D7 engineering team that built and support the application.

Documentum Enterprise Migration Appliance (EMA) – Provided by EMC Professional Services – we need some more detail on this.  Will be based on SpringBatch (we like this) but only available through professional services.

Summary

Over dinner, we talked about the subtle hints in the presentation and look forward to learning more today.  Clients we talked to were somewhat concerned about letting EMC do an assessment as to many clients were burned by the Software Audits a couple of years ago and were not sure they have the trust to let Documentum poke around in their system.  Clients need to make their own decision whether D2 and xCP 2.0 really do reduce their TCO and are truly “better” than their existing environments to justify the assessment combined with migration effort, cost and risk.

The migration appliance is interesting.  Tied to the change in the object model and behaviors for both D2 and xCP, IIG needs to offer a way to get existing clients and applications to the new model on 7.0 to leverage the new tools.  The appliance moniker makes it sound like it is more than software and smarter than existing solutions.  As a firm that has been doing migrations for years with OpenMigrate, we know the complexity of migrations and question how an “appliance” can accomplish the specific needs of clients in regards to delta migrations, custom database lookups and some of the other complexity we routinley see.   We will keep an open mind and see what future sessions explain.

Let me know your thoughts below.

First Half Day

One major change was moving the keynote addresses, including both Joe Tucci from EMC and Rick Devenuti to Tuesday morning.  Where we used to kick off Monday with the Keynote addresses, this year EMC has blocked off Monday morning for partner summit and IIG specifically has blocked off Monday afternoon for specific IIG Partner breakout sessions.   We are looking  forward to hearing updates from the partners.  We only have two tracks of break-outs this afternoon with a keynote by David Goulden and Jeremy Burton on “Storage-Defined Storage”.

This morning has been somewhat confusing for the users attending (including us) as, besides hanging out in the lounge and connecting with old friends, there is really not much to do.

Superhero Theme?

EMC is pursuing a super hero theme (I am being serious here) with

• Netwoman
• Captain Data Center
• Virtualizer
• Doctor Stratus
• Sage StorageBot

IIG, while it is hard every year, is being consistent with a Fantastic Four theme with “The Fantastic Trans4m” including:

• Mr. Transform
• Sync & Share
• Governance
•  The Cloud

Hoping we will see some costumes, particularly for Jeetu as Sync & Share ties to Syncplicity (his product) but is represented by a female character.

Solutions Still the Buzzword

As we mentioned in our post two weeks ago, we are anticipating “solutions” will be the word of the conference.  Rick’s Keynote tomorrow – “New Solutions: Delivered. Transformation: Delivered” seem to bear that in mind.  Nothing new yet from talking to attendees that indicates that will be any different.  Ellen and I will be posting as we learn more…. Stay tuned.

This post will discuss out thoughts on IIG’s Financial Performance in comparison to the rest of EMC. 

Documentum IIG Performance – Not bad but not growth

IIG’s individual performance is presented below

Product Revenues are up from 1st quarter last year but down when compared with 2nd, 3rd or 4th quarter.  It is not that surprising as Documentum tends to cram sales in by year-end when clients are looking to spend 2012 money.  The additional spend in 4th quarter 2012 typically adversly affects 1st quarter volume.

Service Revenue has pretty much remained steady over the 4 quarters.  Some telling statistics when comparing to overall EMC

• IIG Product Revenue is 1.4% of EMC’s Overall Product Revenue
• IIG Service Revenue is 4.9% of EMC’s Overall Service Revenue
• IIG Total Revenue is 2.8% of overall EMC Revenue
• IIG Total Revenue is 5 times smaller than the VMWare

IIG can sometimes be saddled with the moniker of “worst performing division at EMC” but, keep in mind, EMC is an incredibly well performing company.  Of the “four horsemen of the Internet (Sun, Intel, Cisco and EMC)” – EMC has done incredibly well, particularly compared to Sun.

Profit over Revenue

As we have said over the past years, EMC isn’t particularly concerned about a division that is less than 3% of overall revenue as long as it is profitable.  Unfortunately we don’t get financial information on net income for the different divisions but I would predict that net income has risen for IIG over the last year.  With revenues remaining stable, net income would increase by reducing expenditures.  Expenditures could include:

• R&D Expenditures – Either less R&D or more cost efficient R&D (Outsource to cheaper developers)
• Support Expenditures– Either less support costs or outsource
• Sales Expenditures – reduced commisions

The Services/Solution Play – the IBM pivot

One significant news event that went mostly unnoticed at the end of 2012 was IIG’s purchase of Trinity.   We see it as a significant change in Documentum’s focus on product versus service.   With ECM moving to more of a commodity based on pressure from more-cost efficient options like Alfresco or SharePoint as well as free collaboration alternatives like DropBox and the host of others, software firms with high prices are struggling and do not get the valuation they used to 10 years ago.  Many are pivoting to quickly add services to focus on consulting similar to IBM’s move in the 90s.

We would predict that IIG/Documentum will continue this trend as we mentioned in our preview of EMC World being all about services.

Summary

Overall IIG/Documentum results are not bad but it is a very small component of EMC’s overall revenue.  IIG/Documentum needs to remain profitable as revenue growth will be difficult.  We would not predict significant investments but would expect more of a services/solution practice development similar to IBM’s approach.

With Joe Tucci still charge of EMC, we would predict that the likelihood of EMC to selling off Documentum/IIG division would be unlikely.  Joe Tucci was the at the helm of EMC when Documentum was purchased and would not want that decision viewed negatively with a sale given the small impact on the overall company.

Let us know your thoughts below or predictions below.