The Content Integration Challenge
Automatic transformation of content to browser-friendly formats, multiple presentment options, flexible security options (e.g., single sign-on) and interfaces into other systems are critical features as well.
Using a solution that provides transparent access to content is an excellent alternative to a fully integrated content repository. Federating content across multiple repositories provides seamless access to content stored anywhere in the enterprise. This approach also eliminates the complex, expensive and time-consuming task of building a proprietary content integration solution. A federated approach reduces IT costs by eliminating the need for disparate viewers to multiple repositories. Further, by giving Web applications and business users direct, secure and real-time access to critical information in disparate repositories, it provides unprecedented levels of enterprise integration.
ASG-Total Content Integrat
ASG-TCI provides seamless access to content stored anywhere in the organization. It gives users fast, easy and secure access to disparate and isolated content sources, including ASG-ViewDirect, ASG-Cypress and non-ASG repositories, databases and email archiving applications. ASG-TCI’s Web services are publicly available, allowing anyone to easily integrate disparate content into any application.
All ASG-TCI components are built using packaged Web services, providing an open, standards-based architecture that ensures interoperability and is J2EE-compliant and .NET-enabled. ASG-TCI does not require system modification, so it does not affect performance, and administrators can easily maintain the security of the content.
Adapters: ASG-TCI communicates with repositories and other content sources via Web Services-based adapters that understand how the content is structured. ASG provides a wide range of adapters that federate access to various content sources. These include repository adapters (e.g., Microsoft Office SharePoint server), database adapters (e.g., SQL server), and application adapters (e.g., for third-party search engines).
Core services: ASG-TCI’s content services bus provides the core services that locate content anywhere in the enterprise and deliver it to content consumers.
The search service gives users transparent access to content across an enterprise, regardless of where or how it is physically stored. The service translates the user’s search criteria, passes the necessary information to the distributed adapters, accepts the search results from the adapter and automatically builds a result list for the user. When the user clicks a result, multiple options for displaying the content are displayed.
The authentication service ensures secure access with flexible options for validating a user’s credentials. It provides information about each user’s access privileges and has a single sign-on capability, eliminating the need for a user to enter credentials for multiple repositories.
Index mapping resolves the relationship between the common universal indexes defined in ASG-TCI and the repository-specific indexes in the underlying content repository. Through index normalization, users can enter one index value to retrieve content stored in multiple repositories. ASG-TCI imposes no limit on the number of index fields and content sources that can be mapped.
Index update allows user interfaces to add, edit and remove metadata (index values) for a document already in the repository or content source. This is important for all adapters and sources, specifically sources in which client user interfaces are focused on search and retrieval as read-only functions rather than on metadata entry. Index update applies to multiple cases that range from correcting a value wrongly assigned to more complex cases, such as when a certain value is not known at archival time or instances where a value must be changed as the document lifecycle progresses.
The content delivery service obtains content from the source repository in its native format and renders it for viewing in several different ways: via a Web browser, in an associated application on the desktop (particularly useful for use with Microsoft Office documents), or via a "native" viewer for a source repository.
ASG-TCI’s archive write service adds content from any other source directly into the ASG-ViewDirect repository. This eliminates the time, effort and cost of using separate interfaces for adding and retrieving content while reducing the overall cost of repository ownership by enabling automatic migration from disparate sources to a federated repository.
Web services interface: ASG-TCI delivers content to any content-consuming application (e.g., customer service applications, workflow engines, records management clients, etc.). Content can be delivered in its original format, it can be automatically rendered into Web-friendly formats for viewing (e.g., HTML, PDF or JPEG) or it can be delivered embedded in a repository-specific viewing client (e.g., ASG-DocumentDirect for the Internet).
A Complex Process Made Simple
ASG-TCI’s Web services-based architecture makes content integration possible in a distributed environment. A single request from any Web application is activated across multiple, disparate repositories. SOAP over HTTP/SSL enables remote access to repositories and to other applications across network firewalls.
Administration: ASG-TCI is a packaged application with out-of-the-box functionality, eliminating the time-consuming and expensive tasks of programming and maintaining APIs. It provides a "no-code" approach to configuration that reduces the cost and time of installation and implementation.
The importance of metadata: Metadata is the key to unlocking enterprise information and making it easily available to authorized users. Effective metadata management delivers important benefits:
- Build it right and it will work: Metadata standards including XML, SOAP and UDDI are key components of implementing service-oriented applications (SOAs);
- Build it once and reuse it many times: Reduce development and maintenance overhead by maintaining access to the metadata in a central location and reusing it for existing and new applications and services;
- Build it and they will come: Once a central metadata framework is established, it can be used for new enterprise applications and services.
In ASG-TCI, a universal index serves as a surrogate for indexes in the various, disparate content repositories included in a search. When ASG-TCI builds search queries for each content repository, it enters the appropriate repository index name based on the relationship between the universal index and the repository index established in the repository or via the index mapping service.
The primary purposes of universal indexes are to 1. eliminate the need to build complex search criteria or queries that include disparate indexes from varied content repositories; and 2. normalize index names and formats so they are presented in a consistent way. Define universal indexes and allow ASG-TCI to build appropriate search queries based on definitions from the repositories.
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www.asg.com or call 800-932-5536.