MALAYSIAN PUBLIC SECTOR OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE (OSS) PROGRAMME BENCHMARK/COMPARISON REPORT DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (NUXEO AND ALFRESCO)

Transcription

1 MALAYSIAN PUBLIC SECTOR OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE (OSS) PROGRAMME BENCHMARK/COMPARISON REPORT DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (NUXEO AND ALFRESCO) DECEMBER 2009

2 Copyright The Government of Malaysia retains the copyright of this document.

3 Table of Contents SECTION 1 : INTRODUCTION...1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...2 INTRODUCTION...2 SECTION 2 : COMPARISON / EVALUATION TABLE...3 CONSIDERATIONS OF COMPARISON / EVALUATION...4 NUXEO...4 ALFRESCO...4 FEATURE COMPARISON TABLE...5 SECTION 3 : CONCLUSIONS...9 CONCLUSIONS...10 SECTION 4 : REFERENCES...11 REFERENCES...12 LINKS...12 SECTION 5 : APPENDIX...13 ALFRESCO...14 NUXEO...18 Index of Tables Table 1: Feature comparison between Nuxeo and Alfresco...8

4 SECTION 1 : INTRODUCTION

5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Document Management Systems stand as one of the best solutions to manage an organisation's documents. Using these tools, documents are easily stored, indexed, archived and retrieved. This evaluation presents findings on feature comparisons between open source versions of Nuxeo and Alfresco. Both of these Document Management Systems also have commercial versions, which are out of scope for this report. These findings are intended as references for agencies wanting to implement an open source Document Management System. INTRODUCTION Wikipedia defines Document Management System (DMS) as a computer system (or set of computer programs) used to track and store electronic documents and/or images of paper documents. In short, DMS is an electronic filing cabinet and a clerk rolled into one. Nuxeo and Alfresco are categorised as DMS by virtue of their modules and components which combine to provide a useful solution for administrative departments requiring to manage and organise their documents. Page 2

6 SECTION 2 : COMPARISON / EVALUATION TABLE

7 CONSIDERATIONS OF COMPARISON / EVALUATION This report intends to be an objective comparison between Nuxeo 5.3 and Alfresco Community Edition 3.2. Both are considered stable, robust platforms for electronic document management. NUXEO Nuxeo is a comprehensive free/open source software Document Management System (DMS) platform. It has been designed to be robust, scalable and highly extensible, by using modern open source Java EE technologies, such as: the JCR, JSF, EJB3, JBoss Seam, OSGi, and a Service Oriented Approach (SOA). It can be used to develop both web-based server applications and Rich Client applications. Nuxeo can run on various platforms because of its compatibility with Microsoft Windows and other Unix-like operating system such as Redhat, Suse and Ubuntu. ALFRESCO Alfresco is a free/open source software, open standards, enterprise DMS for Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems. Its design is geared towards users who require a high degree of modularity and scalable performance. Alfresco includes a content repository, an out-of-the-box web portal framework for managing and using standard portal content, a Common Internet File System (CIFS) interface that provides file system compatibility on Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems. Page 4

8 FEATURE COMPARISON TABLE FEATURES PERSPECTIVES NUXEO ALFRESCO Usability Provides Nuxeo WebEngine as a creator of websites for free and completely Open Source. With this tool, you can create totally user-oriented portals without sacrificing all the benefits of records management. Provides a desktop application to manage content stored very fast, it is Nuxeo RCP Drag and drop articles, press releases, videos, and audio onto pages within their web site Point and click to rapidly assemble new experiences within their web site, ensuring content is delivered to exactly the right people in the right way Drag and drop articles, press releases, videos, and audio onto pages within their web site Point and click to rapidly assemble new experiences within their web site, ensuring content is delivered to exactly the right people in the right way Instantly preview all of their changes while leveraging Alfresco's innovative virtualisation server technology Manage the presentation and deployment of all electronic assets in the business Page 5

9 FEATURES PERSPECTIVES NUXEO ALFRESCO Drag &Drop Live Edit Tagging Versions Search Workflow Functionality Stable, by using it daily, and several of clients as well. Reference from the case study program belonging to the Andalusian automous community of Spanish Government. Can use on-line editing of documents in a large number of configurations: Linux or Windows (XP and Vista) Explorer or Firefox, MS Office or Open Office. Besides, each one of them with multiple versions (Office 2003 and 2007, Firefox 2.X and 3.X, Explorer 6 and 7... etc). Totaling more than 60 possible combinations. The experience of a client of Alfresco Community, reported that this functionality is completely unstable, having tested a large number of different settings (Firefox 3, IExplorer 7 etc.) Users do not have information that they can not use FireFox (are forced to use Microsoft's browser) and install a Microsoft SharePoint module. Both Document Management Systems allow users to "tag" (label) content to browse through the information using these tags. Nuxeo calls this "virtual browsing" and it makes sense for matters such as browsing the content of different countries (Europe images together) and then switch to browsing folders by "themes" for example images of Economics on the one hand, on the other sports. Both platforms also allow for easy management of versions. Version upgrades, the recovery of previous versions or consulting the history of actions on a document are incredibly easy. Both Alfresco and Nuxeo based the search on open standard tools such as Lucene and Open Search. These search engines index all the documents (title and total content) in and resolve searches in less than 1 second ("Google" style). The workflow engines of Nuxeo and Alfresco are based on JBPM (Java Business Process Management) and the use of workflows, involving users of the system is very simple. But this feature also tilts the balance back in favor of Nuxeo, the interface management on Alfresco's workflows forces the user to do too many steps to start them, because the wizard's too long. Page 6

10 FEATURES PERSPECTIVES NUXEO ALFRESCO Technology J2EE architecture JBoss JBoss Seam WebDAV Nuxeo Core Nuxeo WebEngine Nuxeo Runtime Support Database backend for storage and authentication Price Community Supported Access to Fixes, Patches Extensibility Partners J2EE architecture JBoss WebDAV CIFS (Common Internet File System) Support Database backend for storage and authentication Spring Framework Alfresco Applications Alfresco Repository Both companies derive significant percentages of their revenue from providing support subscriptions. Alfresco charges something like RM 35,000 per CPU while Nuxeo charges on a per "application" basis, with a tiered program that starts at about RM 52,000 per application. So depending on the scale and support requirements, annual support costs could be significantly different. These parameters can vary a lot, so its not clear there are real cost differences here. However it would seem that on average a customer will pay more to get started with Alfresco Yes Nuxeo developers and the Nuxeo community, it follows that all Nuxeo fixes are immediately available to anyone in the community that can make a build Nuxeo has managed to keep many great ideas from their previous Zope based system integrating those ideas with a modern JEE application stack. Nuxeo is very extensible and well designed. Everything is pluggable using extension points which is a great pattern and considerably less confusing to mange in large-scale, heavily customized systems compared to AOP Yes Alfresco community must wait for any Alfresco Enterprise fixes to be merged from the Enterprise to Community repositories. Alfresco extensibility is based on Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) methodology which is very flexible For Partners and the many places in the world covered by these, Alfresco Page 7

11 FEATURES PERSPECTIVES NUXEO ALFRESCO Supported Operating System Supported Database is clearly superior to Nuxeo. It has more presence, more impact. But as said before citing the case of Windows Vista, the media, the size of companies and capital will not guarantee that software is of high quality. Windows Server Linux Mac OSX Solaris Ubuntu Server MySQL PostgreSQL Oracle 10 MSSQL Apache Derby HSQL Authentication OpenLDAP (Open Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) MS Active Directory NTLM (NT Lan Manager) Database Windows Server Sun Solaris 10 Mac OSX Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Ubuntu Server MySQL PostgreSQL MSSQL Oracle 10 Apache Derby HSQL Active Directory LDAP OpenLDAP MS Active Directory NTLM (NT Lan Manager) Sun one Directory Database Kerberos Table 1: Feature comparison between Nuxeo and Alfresco Page 8

12 SECTION 3 : CONCLUSIONS

13 CONCLUSIONS Both Nuxeo and Alfresco serve as Document Management Systems, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Based on the findings, we conclude that Nuxeo works as the better Document Management System (DMS) platform with its powerful document management functionality, user-friendly User Interface; and its vibrant user community. Prepared by: Khairul Aizat Kamarudzzaman, OSCC MAMPU Page 10

14 SECTION 4 : REFERENCES

15 REFERENCES LINKS php Page 12

16 SECTION 5 : APPENDIX

17 ALFRESCO Diagram 1 : Alfresco's Architecture Page 14

18 Diagram 2 : Spring Framework Architecture Page 15

19 Diagram 3 : A Triplet of Key Foundation Services Page 16

20 Diagram 4 : Alfresco's Protocols Page 17

21 NUXEO Diagram 5 : Nuxeo Core Architecture Page 18

22 Diagram 6 : Nuxeo's Platform Page 19