This is the fourth in a series of articles that discuss the benefits of Moving Content out of SQL Server. The first discusses pairing SQL Server with a file system, the second with an archive, the third discusses pairing SQL Server with a traditional ECM solution; this entry looks briefly at another option – not putting it in SharePoint in the first place…
I’ll keep this super-brief primarily because I’m trying to get the articles posted before EMC World and I’m sat on the flight to Orlando right now!
Bottom line, if storing specific content in SharePoint is causing you pain then you might want to consider putting it directly in to your ECM system and then accessing it from SharePoint using Web Parts. With this approach you are using SharePoint as a portal and directly accessing the ECM’s content and processes. It is not without issues – specifically SharePoint does not know anything about the objects in the ECM system, you cannot use any of SharePoint’s native capabilities to control or interact with these objects. I’ve written plenty of other entries about this and other similar pairings but included it here for completeness.
This approach is especially effective for getting access to content and processes that already exist within your existing ECM systems. Also, it can be combined with the ECM back end concept to allow you to interact directly with content that has been externalized in to the ECM system – this is more complicated that it sounds so I’ll try to expand on it in the near future.
Rumor has it that SharePoint 2010 will support CMIS…using CMIS to connect a SharePoint front end to a ECM backend looks promising and I’m sure that I’ll be writing plenty of other articles about that one as we learn more.
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