Scalability: A key factor in the success of Document Management Software

We all know when we think of choosing a document management software that there are certain technical requirements and functionality we can't go without: version control, exporting documents in various formats, historical activities (logs) on our documents, etc..

What is often overlooked when choosing a document management software is the way the product is suited to the needs of our organization, not just at the time in which we undertake the document management project, but in the future. Scalability is a factor that is often underestimated or completely ignored,which is crucial in determining the success of a document management project.

The growth of the system (scalability) plays a key role, especially in large and multinational companies, where decisions often depend on good ways to centralize institutions, but the policies of the branches also have something to say. For example, we often find in these businesses that among branches they use different document or content management applications and it's really inefficient to share information between different locations, or sooner or later, these branches are forced to migrate their documents to a particular software application imposed by the parent company.

It is difficult that companies take into account scalability in a comprehensive way in dealing with ECM projects due to different edges of the concept. We understand scalability in many ways:

• System capacity to handle increasing volumes of documents, since a given volume of data can cause serious overloading of the system.
• The system capacity can grow at the hardware level, adding additional servers or memory, for example to reduce the response time of the system when carrying out a large number of concurrent queries.
• System's ability to integrate with other business applications that requireaccessing or storing documents.

How to plan for system growth and whether the system will continue to be useful tomorrow?

1. Quantify the number of documents that are expected to drive the system in the future. What growth rate will have the documents on the system?
2. Quantify the number of users expected in the future. And when we talk about users, you must also think of those who use the system indirectly through other applications that query the document management system.
3. Quantify the number of different physical workplaces where the system will be used, whether branches, offices, countries, etc..

Athento at the AIIM Content Management Boot Camp

Last Thursday May 17th, we showcased Athento Intelligent Document Management at the AIIM Content Management Boot Camp in San Francisco, CA. The event was really interesting and perfectly well organized in the Palace Hotel San Francisco. 

Two of our members of Yerbabuena Software in Sillicon Valley, Antonio de las Nieves and Carmen Mateos attended to this event, where they presented the advantages and benefits that Athento and its intelligent way of document management provides in any business process.

The list of companies presented there was also pretty motivating.

We showcase in AIIM Content Management Boot Camp, San Francisco

This Thursday, May 17th, we showcase Athento Intelligent Document Management at the
Other vendors include Autonomy, IBM, Oracle, Alfresco or EMC.

You can see the complete list of companies presenting here.


I will be attending the event with Carmen Mateos, a recent member of Yerbabuena Software.
Feel free to come and say hi! ;-)


And here is a video about the event:





A list of the sponsors to this series of Content Management Boot Camp events:

Comments on Athento DMS

"I sincerely believe that @Athento is the best #ECM  software out there.  Every new demo I discover innovative and differential improvements"

David Criado,  on Twitter, 10 Mayo 2012
David has benn a Team Leader at Indra (#1 IT company in Spain) and Senior Knowledge Leader at Everis, among others. 
View full Linkedin profile.
Vorpalina initiative webpage from David.

Cloud Document Management Software: Comparing the Top Solutions

Document-management-workflow (Click on image/Press L for a full view) (Photo credit: Saad Faruque)

Companies in this comparison have been chosen not only because of its popularity, in the case of vendors like Alfresco, Knowledgetree and Nuxeo, but also because of the relevance shown by Google as Cloud Document Management providers.

The first part of this comparison is intended to introduce the products evaluated, while the second analysis is performed in three areas:
Basic functionality, advanced functionality and other features such as support and prices.

Solutions: 

Alfresco Beta Cloud

Simple and fast buying process, which is a non insignificant feature when one wants to have a document management solution running as soon as possible. Another of the strengths of Alfresco is its interface, very easy to use and clean. However, now we just have Alfresco Beta, which leaves out advanced document management features. We have to wait a few months for Alfresco Team and Enterprise versions to become available in the cloud. Right now, users can enjoy up to 10GB storage for free, but this is very little real work for a company, of course. Prices are expected for Alfresco Team to be around 70 dollars per month, but we have to wait a few months to see it.

Athento Cloud

The main strength is that Athento offers advanced functionality for reasonable prices. All products have OCR functionality integrated into Athento cloud as its core functionality. Furthermore, it takes 5 minutes to enjoy Athento. But above all, in addition to existing features, Athento Cloud is a bet on the future. With a large and comprehensive roadmap, Athento will soon have new features such as integration with leading social networks, new interface and a MarketPlace in which users can scale their custom applications.

Knowledgetree

Knowledgetree is an asy to configure and maintain open source DMS, with very good documentation and well covered basics. It also has a strong community, and has been developed using PHP programming language.

The main concerns with Knowledgetree are its scalability, a not so friendly UI or the fact that most interesting features are under the commercial version.

LogicalDoc

A fairly complete solution for document management core functionality, but advanced features which are quite expensive. Around 1800 euros per year. On the other hand, a growth in the number of users will make this product escape many pockets.

With servers in the Netherlands, LogicalDoc is one of the solutions to be considered, although its implementation is one its weakest points, since it misses one of the advantages of the cloud, the reduced time to acquire and enjoy the service.

Nuxeo Cloud

Nuxeo is king in basic functionality, a document management solution that does not take control of documentation lightly. However, many of the advanced functionality gets achieved with integrations with third parties and in the cloud version these integrations are not available. For example, an essential functionality such as OCR is not available in the cloud version. The marketplace, on the other hand, is something to be noted because it will bring many opportunities to its users. Once Nuxeo has an increased number of plugins in its marketplace, users can grow their cloud applications as desired.

However, prices are quite high for Nuxeo, making it one of the most expensive solutions out there.

Basic Feature Analysis

In this section we consider features that should be in any Document Management System, whether SaaS or OnPremise.

Advanced Features Analysis

This section is intended to consider the added value that these document management and ECM offer.

Pricing and Support

One of the most important aspects to consider is support, as Document Management in the Cloud is a service and a service must deal with situations where the client does not get their needs met on the platform. Meanwhile, prices will play an important role, since these systems tend to operate through subscriptions and monthly payments. The continued payment for the service must be viable for the company. Similarly, before hiring such services we should analyze what price system is best for the company: number of users, capacity, number of documents or combinations of these.

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