- Managing Web Assets
- Content-Management Architecture
- Summary
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Content-Management Architecture
A content-management infrastructure consists of subsystems that fulfill the following four functions. (See Figure 6.)
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Content creation and editing
Content repository and versioning
Workflow and routing
Deployment and operations management
Figure 6 Four major subsystems of content-management infrastructure.
Content Creation/Editing Subsystem
The content creation/editing subsystem consists of content-editing tools, such as HTML editors, word processors, image editors, and XML editors. A wide variety of tools reflects the fact that each kind of content specialist, such as an artist creating an illustration or a telephone support associate creating a trouble ticket, becomes most efficient when that individual uses a tool suited to his expertise and problem domain. The job of the creation/editing subsystem is to accept input, effect appropriate processing on the input such as error checking and bounds checking, and, whenever possible, present direct feedback to the tool user about the results of their actions. For example, a developer creating servlets by writing Java code should see the effects of the code changes on an application server, preferably in real-time. We measure effectiveness of the creation/editing subsystem by the productivity of the content specialists that the subsystem serves. In addition, we can expect that the ability to support metadata tagging, using standard mechanisms such as XML, will become increasingly important.
Repository Subsystem
The repository subsystem provides storage, access, retrieval, indexing, versioning, and configuration management of content. Content includes files, database assets, and structured assets (for example, XML). Access to content is available through standard means, including file system access, standard database access API's (ODBC, JDBC), and browser interface. We measure effectiveness of the repository subsystem according to its ability to store assets reliably, with scalability and with excellent performance.
Workflow Subsystem
The workflow subsystem manages assignments, routes jobs, and handles notification to tie together the activities of the many specialists required to create, edit, test, review, and approve the plethora of simple and composite asset types in the repository. This subsystem needs to be aware of the content repository to allow job actions to be driven from repository changes, and conversely to have job actions to cause repository changes. Job specifications may be predefined statically, or ad hoc jobs may be created dynamically according to a "wizard" interface. The effectiveness of the workflow subsystem is measured by it ability to sustain work throughput, while offering simple means to define, modify, and specify new kinds of job routings.
Deployment and Operations Management
The deployment and operations management subsystem copies a variety of asset types from the development environment to production. It does so efficiently and reliably. Operation is 24x7. There needs to be simple mechanisms to provide positive assurance when systems work properly, and immediate notification and escalation when it detects an error state. Because operations often span the globe, crossing organization boundaries and multiple time zones, administration needs to be simple to set up, must be easy to learn, and must provide detailed monitoring and audit trails. The effectiveness of the deployment and operations subsystem is measured by the reliability and throughput of the service, while minimizing the administrative effort.