Book Image

Alfresco 3 Enterprise Content Management Implementation

Book Image

Alfresco 3 Enterprise Content Management Implementation

Overview of this book

Alfresco 3.0 has generated a lot of curiosity with its new content management features. Users have been waiting for a book that covers these concepts along with the security, dashboards, and configuration features of Alfresco 3. Alfresco 3 includes Alfresco Surf, a new N-Tier Architecture, which delivers scalability and accommodates more users on existing hardware resources. This new release also includes a draft implementation of the CMIS specification, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Protocol support. The new multi-tenancy features enable Alfresco ECM to be configured as a single-instance multi-tenant environment. This well-crafted and easy-to-use book is a complete guide to implementing enterprise content management in your business using Alfresco 3. It covers the enhanced document management, a new web-based collaborative application called Alfresco Share, and various integration options with external applications. Alfresco 3 offers true Enterprise Content Management (ECM) by providing an open source alternative to Microsoft SharePoint, Documentum, and Interwoven. It is the most popular Java-based CMS with over 1.5 million downloads, 50,000 live sites, 74,000 community members, and with more than 150 application extensions in forge. This book guides you through creating smart, collaborative content repositories and shows how to use Alfresco 3 to create more elegant document sharing, better collaborative working, and reliable automated workflow processes. The book also explains how administrators can set up Alfresco 3 for multiple business units as a single-instance multi-tenant environment. Business users can leverage Alfresco Share, a new built-in web-based collaborative content management application bundled with Alfresco repository. It simplifies capturing, sharing, and retrieval of information across virtual teams. This book shows you how to unleash the power of Alfresco 3 to create collaborative working systems in your enterprise
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Alfresco 3 Enterprise Content Management Implementation
Credits
About the Author
About the Co-Authors
Acknowledgements
About the Reviewers
Preface
Index

Chapter 1. Introduction to Alfresco

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is the fastest growing category of enterprise software. Customers who are implementing or upgrading ECM systems are facing issues such as vendor lock-in, high maintenance costs, and a lack of standardization. Open source technologies and open standards are becoming powerful alternatives to commercia closed-source ECM software. Alfresco—a relatively new player in this market—has already gained a lot of momentum by providing content management solutions to enterprises, by using open standards and open source based technologies.

The latest release of Alfresco has an Enterprise Edition as well as a Labs Edition. The Alfresco Community Labs product, formerly known as the Community version of Alfresco, is an unsupported product, and is designed for use by developers and technical enthusiasts in noncritical environments. It serves as the research vehicle for new features, and as the platform for the Alfresco Community. Constant innovation of Alfresco Community Labs renders a daily build that offers the latest functionality.

The Alfresco Enterprise Edition is a production-ready, stress-tested certified build that is supported by Alfresco Software Inc. It is a fully-supported Alfresco Product that can be used by corporations and governments that require commercial Service Level Agreements (SLAs). With the release of Alfresco Enterprise Edition 3.0, Alfresco adds Alfresco Share, which is a new collaborative content solution, a draft implementation of the CMIS specification, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Protocol support to Alfresco's innovative ECM platform.

This chapter provides an introduction to Alfresco and outlines the benefits of using it for your enterprise's content management requirements. It also introduces the features of Alfresco Enterprise 3.0.

In this chapter, you will see:

  • The overview and features of Alfresco Enterprise 3.0

  • Key features of Alfresco software

  • How to use Alfresco for your document management, records management, web content management, and collaboration requirements

  • The future roadmap