The term Documentum means different things to different people. Some people think of the repository, some think of Webtop, and the others think of a custom content application they are exposed to.
In order to grasp the full capabilities and organization of Documentum, it is best to think of it as a set of core product components, an additional set of optional product components (some of which are frequently used), and an unbounded set of custom applications.
EMC offers over 50 product components for the Documentum platform. In order to make this complexity manageable, from the standpoint both of comprehension and of software maintenance, the platform is also organized as a framework. The framework provides guidelines, standards, and tools for using and extending the platform.
The Documentum platform is organized in layers, just like the well-known n-tier architecture for enterprise applications. The similarity is more in terms of the benefits of using layers and less in...