[Editor Update May 21, 2008: Keith has moved on to another team within Oracle and, sadly, is no longer an active contributor to this blog. Feel free to direct any questions about his posted articles directly to Steven Chan, instead.]
Oracle has been making big strides in the area of content management. A recent press release touted two new products, Oracle Content Database and Oracle Records Database (or just Content DB and Records DB, for short). In short, Content DB allows you to use a single Oracle database instance as a repository for all kinds of unstructured data, and gives you the ability to use powerful tools like SQL and database privileges to query and manage that data. Records DB offers additional lifecycle management utilities that allow you to apply policies for document auditing, retention, and disposal to meet regulatory compliance obligations.
A Brief History of Content Management at Oracle
If this sounds familiar to you, then you're one of the not-so-many people who's been paying attention to this space over the past few years. Oracle's content management offerings are not entirely new, having undergone several transformations, from iFS, to Oracle Files, to the more recent Oracle Content Services, introduced in Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g. Starting later this summer, this latter incarnation will be rechristened as Oracle Content Database, and will henceforth be available as an option for the Enterprise Edition of Oracle Database 10g.
This marks the first time that a content management product has moved out of being in its own collaboration offering, and into the head-of-the-class database suite. It makes a strong statement about the importance of having access to the right tools for managing the overwhelming amounts of data companies are juggling today. Hopefully making it easier to obtain and install that technology will be a big step toward easing the burden. (Note that shortly after Oracle made this announcement, Microsoft announced that their perpetually elusive WinFS project was being taken out of the operating system track, and integrated into their SQL Server product. Coincidence? One has to wonder.)
I Want It Now!
Today, there are a handful of E-Business Suite products that offer optional integration with Oracle Files and/or Oracle Content Services, including Product Lifecycle Management, Internal Controls Manager, and Oracle Tutor.
For instance, Oracle Document Management is an integral component of PLM that allows product designers & engineers to associate large numbers of files and documents that have their own lifecycle policies. It supports features such as check-in/check-out, major/minor revisions & versions, access control, associations (to E-Business Suite objects), and more...all on top of Oracle Content Services. Going forward, we expect that many more products will be enticed to provide support for both Oracle Content DB and Oracle Records DB.
Now in the Bullpen
To aid in this process, the folks here at Techstack Central are looking at how we can make it easier for E-Business Suite teams to offer such support in their products. Content DB and Records DB will be available starting in August, and our evaluation of these products for integration with Release 12 is already well underway.
Our Mail Filters Are Standing By
We will be making a decision at a later time regarding support with Release 11i, but in the meantime, if this combination is deemed critical for your company (and an upgrade to Release 12 is not in the cards), you can always help us out by letting us know about it, either by adding a comment to this blog entry, or by sending me or Steven an email.
Be sure to tell us which specific products you are interested in integrating with our content management solutions.
Comments (7)
Our company would be extremely interested in this integration. We almost went with Collaboration Suite, but it wasn't quite there yet. We are a consulting company who are heavy Project users. They are shopping for alternatives, but everything is going to be outside the db which is going to hurt it's usability in the long-run.
Posted by Kevin | July 17, 2006 9:30 AM
Posted on July 17, 2006 09:30
Kevin - feel free to email me and we'll figure out who can help you guys decide.
james.van.heel@oracle.com
Posted by Jim Van Heel | July 17, 2006 2:03 PM
Posted on July 17, 2006 14:03
Kevin - thanks for the feedback. Since James has volunteered his knowledge, I would definitely take advantage of that. But I would also like to add my thoughts.
First, if you last looked at this in Collaboration Suite 9i (which included Oracle Files), I would definitely take another look at Content Services (in 10g) or Content DB, when it comes out shortly. The new products are significantly richer in what they offer than the older Oracle Files product.
Also, Collaboration Suite is a very complex set of products, and difficult to set up. This was true for Files, and is not really any less true for Content Services. From what the development teams tell me, Content DB is MUCH easier to install and configure, so you may find the overall experience of managing Content DB much better.
Good luck,
Keith
Posted by Keith M. Swartz | July 17, 2006 4:23 PM
Posted on July 17, 2006 16:23
Kevin
One of the requirements of our legal department is a centralized datastore for all customer related data. We have Collab Suite and have started down the road of building our hook here. In Oracle Applications we have deployed Customers Online, Sales, and Marketing Onling on the CRM side. It would be great if the customer attachments portlet in these modules used the same content services as MOL or Proposals. Since the engine appears the same as Collab Suite how could be use the same datastore we have already created here? I understand that the layout would need to be migrated to the structure Apps requires, but I should then be able to have our Customers Online users see and use the same customer docs as the custom applications we are building now.
Posted by Keith Rachunok | August 31, 2006 11:12 AM
Posted on August 31, 2006 11:12
Keith,
I assume you were addressing me (the author of the post), and not Kevin (the first commenter).
I think the idea of having the CRM products you listed provide the option of integrating with Content DB or Records DB is an excellent idea for an enhancement. You should consider logging a SR through MetaLink to get that enhancement request logged into our systems, so those teams can see it and track it accordingly.
Cheers,
Keith
Posted by Keith M. Swartz | August 31, 2006 6:49 PM
Posted on August 31, 2006 18:49
Keith,
We have had this in production for a while now(EBS with OCS 9042) and intergrated 11i PLM and Projects with Files. We are playing with 10g OCS as well for a possible upgrade soon. We would like to see all EBS modules use the Files repository for attachments. For eg: Self-service EAM has attachments but they don't go into OCS, the same with Marketing Encyclpedia.
Here is what we as a customer would like to see in terms of integration. The workflows between EBS and OCS are still separate. From a business user standpoint, it is "another system" that they have manage the worklist in. It would be nice to have an integrated workflow between the two, where the last published or latest revision of the document is the one available as the attachment in EBS. This may be done using BPEL, but would be nice to have it out of the box. The delivered workflow for content DB in 10.1.0.2 is very limited and we needed workflows that didn't exist.
Posted by Apparao Kandru | September 26, 2006 2:37 PM
Posted on September 26, 2006 14:37
there are 3 products that seems that are doing the same thing :
Oracle Universal Content Management
Oracle Content DB
Oracle Content Services
are they going to fusion in just one product in the future ? or how come that are 3 products for the same needs ?
Posted by Florin | October 12, 2007 1:24 AM
Posted on October 12, 2007 01:24