ECM Documentum and SharePoint Integration Overview

These two movies provide EMC Documentum integration with SharePoint

This movie gives you a pretty high level overview



The key thing to take away from this video is that EMC and SharePoint have a ROI story to tell. SharePoint stores information in SQL databases. EMC can offer reduced cost by giving you smart data storage.



This video gives you a more detailed and up to date view of the EMC SharePoint integrations.

So the case is that your organization does not face a SharePoint vs EMC Documentum choice. SharePoint has a great deal of agility, ease of use, and integration with Office. EMC Documentum is a more compliant and powerful ECM solution. The two can be combined to reduce total cost of ownership.

Key issues to consider in deciding to go down this path are:

• Has your organization adopted SharePoint already? Is there a case for a single SharePoint UI for content management.
• How large is your data storage requirements? If you are in the 100 of GBs SharePoint alone should be okay, if you are in the 100 of TBs SharePoint 2007 is going to start costing a great deal because everything is in SQL Server storage.
• Do you already have an existing Documentum installation? Documentum is not the easiest system to install or work with. The idea situation would be a firm already using both Documentum and SharePoint unable to replace either with the other.

I would suggest following these principles:

1. Documentum will be the one version of the truth containing all your key data.
   
2. User SharePoint as your Universal UI. SharePoint best features are ease of use and integration with Office, so it makes sense to use SharePoint portal as a universal UI.
3. Start thinking in terms of information life cycles. You need to understand how information is created in your organisation, moving from team based collaborative working documents all the way to long term retained records.
   
4. Active Directory or LDAP services are core to Enterprise Information Management systems. This is probably the first thing you need to think about and get in order. You need a clear model of your organization in a single location to get the pieces working together.

Sum these up as

1. One version of the truth of your organization's staff. This is a first step if you have any hope of a good Enterprise system.
   
2. One version of the truth of your organization's data. This is where you hope to go, and in this case will be EMC.
3. One format for presenting information to your organization. This is where SharePoint comes in.