Documentum Site Caching Services and OpenMigrate Comparison

As we have discussed in other articles, some of our best work involves creating a consumer interface for approved content.  Depending on the client’s needs, we can either use Documentum Site Caching Services or our own Open Source product, OpenMigrate.  In describing this solution to a WebPublisher client, the client asked:

“What are the differences between OpenMigrate and Site Caching Services?”

For this post we will try to give an objective review of the two tools as they can be leveraged to perform similar functions.  As an EMC Partner, we have implemented both solutions often.  It is important to understand that OpenMigrate was originally developed to assist clients in high volume migrations associated with initial loads, upgrades (changing platforms) as well as exports.  Site Caching Services was built and is only leveraged for exports associated with Web Publishing.  For this post, we will compare OpenMigrate’s export capabilities to Site Caching Services.

• Commercial Software versus Open Source – The most obvious difference is that Site Caching Services is released and priced as commercial software (based on source and target CPU) and OpenMigrate is free for download as open source.  For those companies uncomfortable with open source, it should be clear that OpenMigrate, while released as open source, was wholly developed and is owned by TSG.  OpenMigrate has also be certified by EMC as part of the designed for EMC program. 
• High Volume – OpenMigrate was built to address high-volume migrations for initial loads, upgrades and exports.  As a high volume approach, OpenMigrate runs command line and multi-threaded and is based on a DQL Query configured for migration, based on object or node.   Site Caching Services was really constructed for publishing of Web Sites based on lifecycle and cabinet/folder structure and is not multi-threaded.
• Publishing Control – Site Caching Services has limited configuration ability. For example, SCS only contains the ability to cache content out once it reaches a specified lifecycle state. OpenMigrate, on the other hand, has complete control of the publish process so it can better handle items such as exporting content based on a custom attribute setting, mass property updates, addition of overlays, rendition requirements, etc.   
• Error Handling – Error handling is extremely important during initial set up and ongoing maintenance of the system.  When documents are incorrectly published with SCS, it can be difficult to determine why. OpenMigrate creates detailed error and success logs and contains rollback and re-processing capabilities.
• Multiple Platform Support – Site Caching Services was developed to read from a Documentum docbase and write data and content out to a file system and relational database.  OpenMigrate can export data from multiple source systems (Documentum, Alfresco, FileNet, SharePoint and numerous others). It also has multi-platform support on the target side including publishing data out to relational databases as well as Lucene.
• Development Platform –Site Caching Services does not have a development platform. OpenMigrate does contain various configuration settings in addition to the ability to code your own enhancements to the product, if necessary.
• Support – Support for Site Caching Services is available through a normal maintenance and support agreement with EMC. OpenMigrate support is available from TSG as a time and materials engagement.  Which one weighs in your favor would depend upon the level of support your organization needs, but typically a caching job would require a low level of support.
• Installation – When implementing SCS, changes may need to be made to the repository, such as creating or updating a Lifecycle to adhere to SCS’s standards. You can implement OpenMigrate without making a single change to the controlled repository. This is especially important to those clients working in validated environments.

I started this blog article assuming the results would not be so tilted. So, please offer your thoughts if you see other items that I missed.