How Much Data Can You Really Put in the Cloud?

Most organizations balance the need to reduce costs, cut resources and address information security with the demand for better information responsiveness to the business, scalability, and agility. One way they do this is to use the OpenText ECM Cloud. The OpenText Cloud currently services over 21,000 customers, over 2,000,000 users and handles over 2 billion transactions on an annual basis. Once the decision has been made to go to the cloud one of the challenges an organization faces is how to get their data into the cloud. When it comes to populating a cloud based Content Server there are three very effective ways to accomplish this.

The three tools Syntergy recommends for moving data to the cloud are Data Manager, Director and Replicator. Each tool has pros and cons so the best tool for your organization will depend on your situation. Below we take a look at each tool and provide the major benefits for loading information to a cloud based Content Server.

  1. Replicator

    Replicator provides a full multi-directional replication capability to the cloud from an existing Content Server. Content Server objects are replicated to one or more participating systems (cloud or non-cloud based). Any modifications to any of those replicas will be reflected back to every other replica as well as the original object. All sites in production are updated automatically using a proprietary technology that enables transmission of data over low bandwidth networks. Replicator is setup at the administrative level and works automatically in the background.

    Some organizations will use Replicator to move data to the cloud as an offsite backup server. This allows them to store only the information they need locally but have archived information available immediately if needed. It also allows for easy storage and retrieval of archived metadata. Cloud based Content Servers can also be used as offsite failover systems. Because data is replicated to the failover system immediately any disruption of service in the local service will not cause a loss of data.

  2. Director

    Director is a desktop application that allows users to connect to one or more Content Server instances to perform operations such as export, import, copy and move of documents between Local or Network file systems and Content Server. Because Director runs on the desktop it is a great way for individuals to move data to and from a cloud based Content Server. The drag and drop interface is very intuitive for the users. This makes it easy for users to store their local data on the cloud. It is just as easy for users to bring their data down from the cloud for local access. Director runs on 32 and 64 bit systems so it is available to all users in an organization. And Administrators can use Director to easily organize and manage data on a local or cloud based Content Server.

    Director is an extremely popular application for Content Server. Syntergy is in the process of releasing another update with the following additional functionality requested by the user base:

    1. Now with the ability to export/import Records Management metadata
    2. The metadata search has been updated to support Records Management attributes
    3. The content view has been updated to include both Records Management and Hold tabs
    4. Users can apply and remove Classifications
    5. Support for table lookup attributes
    6. Users can apply/remove Holds through the interface or a CSV file descriptor
  3. Data Manager

    Data Manager allows users to export to and import data from a cloud based Content Server. Data Manager is the most popular import/export tool because it offers these advantages:

    1. Save Money: When it comes to moving data cost is a critical factor. The simplest method for loading data into Content Server is also the costliest - manual loading by individuals. Syntergy has participated in several projects where one of the options was to hire a group of people for a period of several weeks to load documents into Content Server. The cost associated with this approach can become quite high once the cost of manual labor, training, validation and correcting errors is taken into account.

      The Data Manager tool is a far more cost efficient approach. It can usually be managed by one person, the accuracy rates of loads are typically 100 percent and the loading can be staged to run at the times that are most efficient for an organization. Detailed logging of errors greatly simplifies corrections and validation. When you add up all of these benefits the automated solution is far less expensive than other options.

    2. Accuracy: A major problem with many methods of data loading is validating that the loads are accurate. Human error is a major problem with manual loading and there is not an efficient validation process to insure the accuracy of the loads. Programmatic loads from other systems are often inaccurate due to poor design, data mapping issues and bugs in the code.

      A big benefit of using Data Manager from Syntergy is that you can stage your data before the load. This gives you time to inspect the data to insure it is accurate which is important if it is coming from another system. This allows you to concentrate your time and resources on validating the data before it is loaded which helps to insure an accurate load into Content Server. You can run your test cases multiple times to make sure the process is correct before moving on to the final data loading.

    3. Efficiency: The Data Manager module is extremely fast which creates amazing efficiency. It also comes with all the options you will need to load your data for your environment. Because Data Manager has been a product for over 16 years it has been developed to handle just about every data loading scenario possible in Content Server. It can load documents, URLs, users, metadata, records and more! There are options for loading watched folders which makes automated loading simple and easy. The detailed logging, including error logging designed to help you identify problems fast, has been developed from years of experience working with hundreds of customers. All of these factors in one product create an extremely efficient loading environment.
    4. Flexibility: In today's business environment flexibility is always a top issue. Many organizations are broken into multiple units with each unit having their own approach. Syntergy has worked with many organizations like this and therefore the Data Manager module has been designed to handle the needs of different groups. The easy to use interface allows you to setup as many loading and exporting scenarios as needed. One group can load documents with metadata in off hours, another group can update metadata on demand while another group can load information based on a set of rules specific to their environment.

      Data Manager's flexibility of operation means your organization can save time and money by going with a single solution. With Data Manager only one module has to be added to the system, only one module is managed by the administrators and the users are trained on only one module.

    5. Speed:Many data loading projects require one simple function to be successful. They need the data loaded quickly. This is typically true in organizations that have hundreds of thousands of documents to load. If the process is not fast enough the users don't have access to their data in a timely manner. Some organizations generate tens of thousands of documents a day from other systems. If they can't get them into Content Server quickly the system is of no use. For these reasons and more, Data Manager has been finely tuned to load information at lightning speed. Customers are been amazed at how quickly documents are loaded. Documents and their metadata are exported from Content Server just as quickly.

If your organization is looking for an easy, efficient way to store and access cloud based Content Server data, Syntergy has the answer. To find out more about these products email info@syntergy.com or call our sales team at (561) 483-2020.