EDMS And iManage Internet: Infinity And Beyond
By Russ Edelman
Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS) have become mission-critical applications for companies that need to manage unstructured information. NetRight Technologies, maker of iManage Network, is introducing its first Internet/intranet offering: iManage Internet, a software-based product that lets you access documents
maintained in a central document management repository via the Web. With it, virtually any user with a browser, and the appropriate security, can obtain access to documents stored within the EDMS system. The EDMS documents and metadata are stored on one or more servers.
NetRight Technologies began toying around with a three-tier approach for its EDMS product about four years ago. iManage Internet is one of the the first products to take advantage of this architecture. I looked at a beta version, and found i
t to be architecturally sound. It embraces the functionality found in iManage Network, NetRight's present document management product.
I used Netscape Communications Corp.'s Navigator 3.0 and Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer 3.0 in our tests with iManage Internet. The virtual machines (VM) from both are utilized by iManage Internet. This product addresses traditional EDMS users' requirements, but for larger, enterprise use, issues such as a better forms/profile designer and replication will have to be considered.
Beneath the Surface
The interface for iManage Internet is well-designed and intuitive, even for users who have little experience with document management or the Web. You can determine what you would like to do simply by selecting a tab (see screen shot above). I found the Search, Results, Folder(s), Stop and Help selections to be useful and free of screen clutter.
For example, after I selected the Search tab, iManage Internet let me enter criteria for performing profile and full-
text searches. NetRight has taken careful steps to provide fielded code lookups and easy da
tabase selection. I selected the authors lookup button, which quickly showed a list. I then specified a variety of search criteria, and the response was fairly impressive.
Once I specified my search criteria and pressed the "Find" button, I was brought to the Results tab. This displayed a traditional hit list of documents that met my search criteria.
Once a document is selected from the search results, it can be viewed, the profile can be displayed or the document can be downloaded, assuming that the author or authorized user has granted rights to the users accessing the documents via iManage Internet. Without it, you can't access the document or see the profile information.
iManage Internet employs a three-tier service architecture that improves performance over the Internet and LAN/WAN. The three-tier architecture consists of industry standard Structured Query Language (SQL)-based database server, NetRight T
echnologies' new DM Server, a Java-based Windows NT Server process, and Netscape 3.0 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0.
The DM Server represents an important advancement in EDMS technology by serving as a proxy or third processing component. It assumes responsibility for NOS security and file access, database access, remote procedure call (RPC) processing and support for varied client access. In a traditional two-tier model, these processes have been performed inefficiently by a fat client. Fat clients normally offer enhanced functionality, but at the cost of performance and overhead. The DM Server sits among the clients, the database server and the document server.
NetRight says it plans to update its iManage Network software to take advantage of three-tier architecture with iManage Network 4.0, which is scheduled for release this summer. At that time, the network client will have a significant portion of its functionality transferred to the DM Server.
NetRight has introduced two levels of securi
ty for iManage Internet. The first level employs a two-phase approach. Phase one uses RSA Data Sec
urity's public key encryption for data that is transferred between user workstations and the DM Server. Once communications are properly established, Phase two is initiated, employing the Data Encryption Standard (DES) encryption. This second level of security lets the DM Server function as a firewall by preventing unauthorized access to the document or database server. The only authenticated trustee of the database and document server is the DM Server.
NetRight has chosen to leverage the low administrative overhead associated with deploying technologies that rely on browser functionality. When I started the iManage Internet demo, approximately 100 KB of Java applets were downloaded to my PC. As users require access to a document repository, they can load their browsers, which will update the Java applets, if necessary. Using Java at the client provides increased performance by communicating directly with th
e DM Server.
Although bidirectional communications is not included in the beta release, NetRight has committed to implementing it in the released product for functions such as document check-in, document additions and profile modifications. NetRight does not believe that the Internet/intranet provides adequate performance for full-featured application integration, a key attribute found in traditional EDMS.
NetRight also plans to introduce more extensibility for integrating applications at the service level. As companies start using Internet/intranet document management systems, the requirements will certainly play themselves out.
Russ Edelman is president of Corridor Consulting in Burlington, Mass., which concentrates its efforts on collaborative computing products. He can be reached at russe@corridorconsulting.com.
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