EMC Documentum Content Transformation Web Services

White Paper EMC® Documentum® Content Transformation Web Services A product with real-time transformation capabilities Abstract This white paper prov...
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White Paper

EMC® Documentum® Content Transformation Web Services A product with real-time transformation capabilities

Abstract This white paper provides detailed information on functionality of the EMC Documentum Content Transformation Services suite of products. It also explains how Content Transformation Web Services facilitate real-time synchronous transformations for content residing in the Documentum repository or file system. September 2011

Copyright © 2011 EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. The information in this publication is provided “as is”. EMC Corporation makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com. Part Number H8831

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Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................. 4 Audience ............................................................................................................................ 4

Introduction ............................................................................................................ 4 Content Transformation Services ............................................................................. 4 Content Transformation Services - Product Suite ...................................................... 5 Document Transformation Services .................................................................................... 5 Advanced Document Transformation Services .................................................................... 5 Media Transformation Services .......................................................................................... 5 Audio Video Transformation Services ................................................................................. 6 XML Transformation Services.............................................................................................. 6

Typical Transformation Operation ............................................................................ 6 CTS Web Services .................................................................................................... 7 CTSWS capabilities............................................................................................................. 7 Salient features.............................................................................................................. 7 CTS Web Services architecture............................................................................................ 8 Profile service................................................................................................................. 8 Transformation service ................................................................................................... 9 Load balancer ................................................................................................................ 9 Mixed content usage ...................................................................................................... 9 Typical Transformation Request Flow in CTSWS ................................................................11 Packaging and deployment options..............................................................................12 Supported client technologies..........................................................................................12 Productivity layer..........................................................................................................12 Java client ....................................................................................................................12 .NET client ....................................................................................................................13

Conclusion............................................................................................................ 14 References ............................................................................................................ 14

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Executive Summary Communicating information to customers, employees and partners through the web, print and wireless devices always begins with the creation or reuse of content. It is imminent that the content authored in one format must be transformed to another that is appropriate for the communication channel. The Documentum Content Transformation Services suite and Content Transformation Web Services component provide several capabilities to help customers generate channel-ready content and address challenges to help businesses and individuals derive greater value from content.

Audience This white paper is intended for customers, IT partners, IT decision makers and knowledge workers involved in sales, marketing, advertising, product management, and other disciplines where productivity depends on transforming several commonly used business formats. This white paper requires the reader to be equipped with a minimal knowledge on Content Transformation Services.

Introduction Content Transformation Services Web Services (CTWS) is a new component in the Documentum Content Transformation Services suite of products that exposes transformation capabilities of Content Transformation Services products to users who want to transform content in the file system or Documentum repository.

Content Transformation Services Content Transformation Services (CTS) is a suite of server-side software capable of transforming content authored in one format to another format that is appropriate to the communication channel.

Figure 1. Documentum unified content management platform Figure 1 represents the various parts of the Documentum unified content management platform. In addition to providing several services, Transformation Services plays a vital role in helping users to easily locate and transform content.   

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Content Transformation Services - Product Suite Each product in the Content Transformation Services suite focuses on a specific set of content format. All CTS products use a common architecture and robust framework. Users can choose a product or multiple products in the CTS suite based on their requirement.

Figure 2. Architecture of Content Transformation Services 6.7 Figure 2 depicts the architecture of Content Transformation Services for the 6.7 release. Prior to 6.7, Audio/Video Transformation Services was only an add-on product for the Media Transformation Services product.

Document Transformation Services

Document Transformation Services (DTS) is server software that generates copies of documents in Portable Document Format (PDF) and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) from standard desktop documents such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. DTS also transforms common documents to PostScript format.

Advanced Document Transformation Services Advanced Document Transformation Services (ADTS) is server software that extends the capabilities of DTS by providing additional PDF rendering for multipage TIFF, AutoCAD, Microsoft Visio and Microsoft Project. In addition, ADTS provides additional format and metadata extraction support—required for content authors who use advanced features such as template styles, hyperlinks, and URLs in source documents and want to preserve these features in PDF documents.

Media Transformation Services

Media Transformation Services (MTS) is server software that performs transformation and analysis for digital media content such as photos and presentations. MTS allows extraction of media properties when files are checked into the Documentum repository that helps users to easily locate the checked-in content. Standard document conversions from PSD to TIFF and repurposing MS PowerPoint slides can be automated to dynamically assemble new presentations.

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Audio Video Transformation Services Audio/Video Transformation Services (AVTS) is server software provides transformation capability for audio and video file formats. AVTS provides advanced support for audio and video, including streaming server support and file optimization. In addition, Audio Video Transformation Services enhances digital asset management and interaction with media.

XML Transformation Services XML Transformation Services (XTS) is server software that transforms and renders XML/DITA documents into a variety of XML-based formats including HTML, XSL-FO (PDF transformations), DITA standards, and so on. XTS leverages the power behind authoring and managing content in XML in a high-performance rendering environment. It includes an XSLT engine and a style sheet toolkit.

Typical Transformation Operation Content Transformation Services provide common transformation tasks by using transformation profiles. A transformation profile maps one or more capabilities of the transformation server as parameters that can be invoked by a client application such as Digital Asset Manager (DAM) or Webtop. EMC Documentum Content Server

Documentum Repository WDK/DFC Based Client

dm_queue

 

Figure 3. Transformation operation

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A typical transformation operation involves the following steps: 1. Users access the Documentum repository using a Web Development Kit-based client. 2. Users then request for one or more transformations using transformation profiles. 3. Transformation requests are queued in the repository. 4. The CTS server polls the queue and processes requests based on priority. 5. Transformed content is stored in the repository as a rendition or new object. In a transformation process, the input data available in the repository is considered for transformation and the transformation requests are processed in an asynchronous manner.

CTS Web Services Content Transformation Web Services, is a set of technologies that enable serviceoriented programmatic access to CTS core capabilities. CTS Web Services is built on Documentum Foundation Services (DFS). CTS Web Services is not a replacement for CTS. It works in coordination with the CTS server to complete an end-to-end real-time transformation.

CTSWS capabilities CTSWS allows users to perform real-time synchronous transformations using file system and repository sources. Requests are directed to appropriate CTS servers reducing the overall turnaround time for a transformation. In addition to real-time synchronous transformations, users can perform traditional transformations where requests are queued in the Documentum repository.

Figure 4. CTSWS real-time synchronous transformation flow Salient features 

Source files from the file system or repository, or from the repository and the file system (as mixed content) are considered for transformation.

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    

Output files can be stored in the file system or repository. Transformation requests are directed to the CTS server and not stored in the queue. A CTSWS server can be configured to work with several repositories. CTSWS interacts with several CTS servers configured to the specified repository for load-balancing. Transformation requests are processed with minimal turnaround time.

CTS web services architecture

Figure 5. CTSWS web services architecture In addition to traditional asynchronous transformations, CTSWS contains two public services through which users can achieve real-time transformations. Profile service The profile web service (IProfileService) provides an interface to CTS transformation profiles. This service enables applications to obtain transformation profiles using various filtering mechanisms and allows users with sufficient privileges, to update the profiles. The profile service performs the following functions: 

Adds one or more profiles to the repository.



Removes a profile from the repository.

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Retrieves a profile based on specific conditions or filters.



Retrieves a profile using profile name or ID.

Transformation service The transformation web service (ITransformationService) enables applications to request transformations from the CTS suite of products in both synchronous and asynchronous modes. Transformation service performs the following functions:    

Routes synchronous transformation requests to the CTS server. Creates a traditional transformation request on Documentum repository content in an asynchronous manner. Imports content from a file system to the Documentum repository and creates an asynchronous request. Deletes jobs (on the specified date).

For more information about operations provided by the Profile and Transformation services, see the Documentum Enterprise Content Services Reference Guide. Load balancer The load balancer component identifies a suitable CTS server among the available CTS instances configured to the repository. It checks profile execution capabilities, service availability, and occupancy to service user requests. The CTSWS server recognizes CTS instances that support synchronous requests. The load balancer performs the following functions:   

Loads profiles from configured repositories into the memory. Implements algorithm to determine the instance that is capable of providing service for a given request. Checks the level of occupancy and the heartbeat for each configured CTS instance periodically, and refreshes the cache.

Mixed content usage Users can provide mixed content (repository and file system content considered as a whole) in a single request to leverage the capabilities of CTSWS. Providing mixed content is useful for profiles that require more than one input file to execute the transformation operation, successfully. For example, users can merge several file system documents with a repository source (and vice versa) and store the result in the repository or file system, using the mergePDF profile (or condensePDF, attachments_adts).

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Users can use mixed content in the following combinations: Source

Input

Output

File System

File System

File System or Repository

File System

Repository

File System or Repository

Repository

File System

File System or Repository

Repository

Repository

File System or Repository

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Typical transformation request flow in CTSWS

Figure 6. Typical transformation request flow in CTSWS A typical transformation request flow is as follows: 1. Instantiate the profile service and retrieve profile information from the repository. 2. Construct the JobTicket object and encapsulate information required for a transformation (ProfileInfo, profile parameters, profile values, source details, output type, and so on.) 3. Instantiate the transformation service and submit the transformation. 4. The transformed output is stored in the repository or file system based on the option specified in the job ticket.

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Packaging and deployment options CTSWS is packaged as EAR and WAR files that enable deployment of services on different web servers and application servers. Use one of the following files to deploy CTSWS:  

transformation.ear - Supported for deployment on JBoss, WebLogic, and WebSphere. transformation.war - Supported for deployment on Tomcat only

For more information about deploying CTS WebServices see the Documentum Content

Transformation Service Installation Guide.

Users must deploy the emc-dfs.ear file or emc-dfs.war file and the transformation.ear file or transformation.war file to leverage the capabilities of Core Services completely.

Supported client technologies CTSWS is consumed using Java or .NET technologies. The productivity layer of CTSWS which is also referred as CTSWS SDK, allows users to build an application rapidly. Productivity layer The CTSWS SDK comprises Java and .NET client class libraries known as the productivity layer. The productivity layer provides the following features that simplify development:   

Convenience methods and constructors that simplify working with collections, instantiation of service proxies, registration of service contexts, and so on. Ability to execute service remotely using web services, or locally within the same JVM (Java only). Java beans with additional convenience functionality and logic for the data model classes.

Java client One of the first considerations while planning an application using Java is to choose the local CTSWS Java services or remote web services. The Java productivity layer is based on the Sun reference implementation of JAX-WS. Remote consumer A remote CTSWS client is a web service consumer using SOAP over HTTP (or HTTPS) to communicate with the remove CTSWS server. The service layer runs in a JEE container and handles all the implementation details to interact with CTS and Content Server.

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Figure 7. Remote CTSWS client Most users are primarily interested in remote consumers for production purposes. Local consumer A local service consumer runs in the same Java Virtual Machine as the services it invokes. These services connect to the Documentum repository using an underlying DFC client.

Figure 8. Local CTSWS client The local consumer is highly valuable in a test environment, and may be an option in some production scenarios. In the Java productivity layer, ensure that JDK 5 or 6 is installed on the remote client machine or the local client machine. .NET client The .NET productivity layer is based on Microsoft® Windows® Communication Framework (WCF) and has functional parity with the Java productivity layer. The .NET client is supported only in the remote mode.

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The following software must be installed on the client machine for .NET productivity layer consumers:  

.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Visual Studio 2005 or 2008

Conclusion CTS Web Services are SOAP/WSDL -based services built on the Documentum Foundation Services platform to provide synchronous real-time transformation capabilities. Any client application based on CTSWS can request (using the file system or repository source) for transformations where the resulting files are made available to the client directly with minimal turnaround time.

References     

EMC Documentum Enterprise Content Services 6.7 Reference Guide EMC Documentum Content Transformation Services 6.7 Installation Guide EMC Documentum Content Transformation Services 6.7 Administration Guide EMC Documentum Foundation Services 6.7 Deployment Guide EMC Documentum Foundation Services 6.7 Development Guide

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