Fusion ECM

There are many ways to design (for Raoul, to architect) a WCM or web content management system.  But at risk of oversimplifying, you have creation, contribution, and consumption that needs to happen at some point at some place.  Oracle Universal Content Management incorporates WCM and facilitates the creation, contribution and consumption of web material through many different implementation styles.  For instance:

Content in a UCM system may be converted / repurposed for web consumption by leveraging UCM conversion/manipulation capabilities then pushing content out to a web farm somewhere to be cobbled together through a third party application / web server . 

Web sites (and all web content) might be fully managed in a single UCM instance where site creation, information contribution, and consumption of the information by the audience all happens in the same system.

Or contribution may be separated from consumption by setting up dedicated UCM servers just for those purposes. 

Each approach has its benefits and its costs.  A careful consideration is beneficial to everyone involved.  What follows is a list that was compiled here on the pros and cons of a consumption / contribution WCM architecture.  The list is by no means comprehensive, but it is a good jumping off point for thoughts and considerations:

Pros

• Ability to modify the security model when replicating content from contribution to consumption.
  
• Ability to disable contribution (both contributor mode and RW access) on Consumption.  This provides a level of security insulation.
  
• Isolates processing resources such that consumption resources go entirely (or nearly entirely) to consumption.  Conversion, workflow, notifications, and other contribution processing are separated.
  Ability to transform metadata when replicating content from contribution to consumption.
  
• Contribution can be internal while consumption may be in the DMZ and/or behind a reverse proxy.  This may be required to meet network isolation requirements.
  
• Contribution could serve as a hot standby
  
• Can be leveraged to create a geographically distributed model � such as consumption servers in Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
  
• Sometimes required when there is poor bandwidth between the contribution environment and the internet/extranet clientele.
  
• Caching can be optimized for use in each environment. Specifically, by putting updates to consumption on a cycle that is a longer period than contribution documents arrive (maybe periods of 1 hour, 3 hour, 6 hour, daily) consumption cache stability can be maintained for longer periods resulting in better average consumption performance and possibly higher capacity.
  
• Systems are built for the load (contribution is sized for number of contributions and docs changed/hour, while consumption is based on page views/second and HA requirements.)
  
• Security.  Even though content items with future release dates or in workflow are not available through the search index, they may still be accessible if you browse to them or know the URL.

Cons

• Additional license costs for multiple environments
  
• Additional service and maintenance costs for multiple environments
  
• Replication machinery introduces complexity and a point of failure
  
• Slight delay in publishing times
  
• Extra work required to enable external contribution and/or forms submittal via extranets