Momentum 2010 – Thoughts on SharePoint

Consistent with Rick’s priority list from the last post, for this post we thought we would review the SharePoint related presentations from Momentum 2010 – Lisbon.  Probably the best presentation was Mike Mohen and Andrew Chapman’s  – Customizing and Enhancing Microsoft SharePoint Interoperability and introduction of the SharePoint Documentum Framework (SDF).

SharePoint Documentum Framework

In reviewing the presentation, our first thought was – SDF – What is that?  Turns out that Mike Mohen is in the professional services group and SDF (formerly DC4M) is not a product.   Here’s how he presented the different tools and when to use them:

• Tier 1 – Repository Services
  • Transparent requirement; basic archive/compliance of content to Documentum
• Tier2 – My Documentum for SharePoint
  • Expose Documentum ILM to SP2010; Virtual documents, browse, search, meta-data
• Tier3 – SharePoint Documentum Framework – SDF
  • Need more ECM – workflow, IRM, RM, WWF, InfoPath, custom solutions

As pointed out in previous posts, we (TSG) were somewhat disappointed that the MyDocumentum suite could not be customized to add components like workflow and other common requirements.  The quote from EMC at EMC World in May was “Why would you want to customize?”  From the presentation, it seems like EMC Professional Services has run into the same user issue we have seen in regards to needing a framework for customization.  I will post some of the information here so that clients can better understand the SDF and what it does.

SDF allows out of the box web parts that allow the features of Documentum to be surfaced in a SharePoint interface.  Mike described it as a “Framework of Open Code from 40 different projects”.  Web Parts include Browse, Search, Advanced Search, Inbox, Subscriptions, Home Cabinet, Shared Browse and Search, BAM, Federated Search, Records management, Intelligenc Rights Management .  All of the SDF is build on the DFS layer (a good thing) but only compatible with SharePoint 2010 (from our other source of information).

One of our clients has been talking with EMC and was impressed with the seemless sign-on – Mike’s presentation went into some detail in regards to security of passing the default credentials from SharePoint and making a Web Services (DFS) call.

The presentation went on to talk about how SDF could be used for integrated rights management as well as xCP integration.

So what does it mean for customers?

We are slightly confused in regards to SDF – given the acronym, is it a service or product?  Obviously if it has been used at 40 different clients, we would have to say it is a Professional Service component at the present time but hold out hope that it might become a product.  From discussions with clients, it sounds like something has been promised with 6.6.  It is definitely worth asking your sales rep although we could not find any literature on SDF within Powerlink.  Given our background in regards to developing Codeware from clients and releasing it as Open Source, we thoroughly endorse having access to something like SDF available for those situations where MyDocumentum for SharePoint doesn’t quite meet all requirements.