Architectural Strengths -- designed for scalability
The Content Manager multi-tier distributed architecture is fully web-enabled, scalable, and extensible. It includes five core components:
Library Server is the central source for indexing, describing, locating, organizing, and managing enterprise content. It locates stored objects using a variety of search technologies and provides secured access to content and manages transactions.
Mid-tier Server is the Web-exploiting broker that mediates between the client and the Library Server. It supports the enhanced Content Manager API toolkit and manages connections to the Library Server and optionally, to the Resource Managers.
Resource Managers (formerly called Object Servers) are specialized repositories optimized to manage the storage, retrieval and archival of enterprise content. IBM Content Manager for Multiplatforms V8 includes document, image, and rich media resource managers. Content Manager VideoCharger provides streaming media support. Content Manager OnDemand manages resources for high volume print output (COLD) data.
Support for heterogeneous servers across multiple platforms allows the the system to:
- manage all kinds of data with optimum processing for each individual data type
- reduce network demands and improve user response time by placing servers close to users - particularly important for delivery of large multimedia objects
- integrate additional Resource Managers on the same or different platforms
- scale up from one operating environment to another.
- grow from a single workstation system to a networked enterprise-wide solution
- use networked IBM® Tape Library and Optical Library units under System Managed Storage control
- use RS/6000® configurations with multiple Object Server nodes, fast switching, and high availability
eClient is the browser-based thin client that provides the graphical user-interface to the Content Manager and related systems. The eClient communicates through the mid-tier server and/or directly to Resource Managers, enabling fast and secure delivery of objects while maintaining full transactional support with referential integrity.
Client for Windows® is the desktop client that exploits the client-server architecture, providing out-of-the-box capabilities for supporting high volume, high performance, production-level document applications.
This modular architecture is optimized to support a full range of configurations from small departmental workgroups to configurations that span geographically dispersed organizations, running diverse hardware platforms, with thousands and potentially millions of users connected through the intranet/Internet, while maintaining secure central management control.
