#cloudcms

This is not going to be a list of features in Cloud CMS, that to be honest, you righfully expect in a CMS: API, versioning, workflow, Content model, Content entry forms,..

For a bit of fun, I started thinking “what really makes Cloud CMS better than your CMS” embracing my school boy mentality.

1. SaaS and/or On-Premise

Cloud CMS is avaible as a SaaS product and OnPremise. Docker containers have allowed us to distribute the Cloud CMS product easily for On-Premise/Private Cloud installation. Whilst SaaS may offer many benefits, On-Premise is still a desirable option for some companies

2. Branches

Cloud CMS stands apart from just about every other content management product on the market in that it offers a versioning model that is based around changesets. It is inspired by Git and Mercurial which are popular source-control products within the software development world. As such, Cloud CMS provides a changeset versioning system that captures every touch - every create, update or delete - that you make.

Branches can be used to create scheduled releases or simply to have branches for various content activities.

3. Deploy/Publish

Cloud CMS Deployment lets you publish content from a source Cloud CMS project branch to one or more destination Deployment Endpoints. These Deployment Endpoints may include Amazon S3 buckets, FTP servers, file system locations and Cloud CMS branches on the same cluster or running in a cluster located in another data center somewhere else in the world.

It is easy to configure a simple typical setup to manage the Content Life Cycle to publish content from an Authoring Projec to Live Project. Can even deploy out to multiple remote targets, and then have subsequent chained deployments.

4. Graphical view of content

This is interesting way to view a piece of content and relationships. It also can be very useful

5. Multifactor Authentication

With Multifactor Authentication enabled for a user, that user will be required to supply a verification code in addition to their username and password. The verification code is delivered to the user's phone or mobile device via SMS, a phone call or an app.

6. Transfer service

Cloud CMS provides a universal import and export facility that lets you transfer your data in and out of Cloud CMS installations.This universal transfer service is very well suited for tasks such as:

Export/import

Migration (Bulk Upload)

Backing up of content or projects

7. Awareness Service

Awareness service allows you to see who's viewing/editing the same document with you in realtime, just like google docs.

8. Finally – we make the difference.

Cloud CMS comes in two flavors - on-premise and hosted. For our hosted customers, we host 100% of Cloud CMS and take care of all of the data backup, migrations, security, load balancing and... well, everything! It's the whole kit and kaboodle. It's all of the DevOps and stuff solved for you.

One of the fun aspects of this is keeping up with security requirements around SSL and HTTP Transport. Cloud CMS customers automatically gain the advantage of SSL for all of their communication with the Cloud CMS API, user interface and hosted applications. We run secure HTTPS endpoints for all of customer touchpoints and this guarantees our customers connect and communicate with Cloud CMS over a secure and safe channel. Their data is secure and cannot be tampered with over the wire.

To guarantee this, we keep our infrastructure up to date on all of the latest security recommendations with respect to SSL, including recommendations around cipher strength, certificate authorities, protocol support and key exchange algorithms. Every few months, some news hits the security realm about potential or demonstrated weaknesses in these algorithms and strategies. As weaknesses are understood, new workarounds are recommended and we implement those recommendations right away.

As such, our transport security received top marks:

We just released Cloud CMS version 3.1.315 which includes more sample configurations to help customers and prospects get started with on-premise Docker deployments. Our Docker distribution includes several "kits" that contain pre-built Docker Compose configurations that help customers to get up and running right away. These configurations can either be used as is or they may serve as a reference for building out new configurations that meet a customer's exact needs.

Cloud CMS offers Docker as an option for customers who wish to run Cloud CMS on-premise on within their own data center. Customers often want to do this for security reasons - for example, they may wish to take advantage of custom volume encryption, custom port or DNS settings or transport configuration. Customers also may wish to run Cloud CMS via Docker so as to introduce custom extensions to the back end server or front-end user interface that run "in-process". In-process code can include things like custom actions, rules, workflow triggers, mimetype transformers and more.

In most cases, the trick to getting things up and running lies not so much in the configuration of Cloud CMS, but much more in the inner workings and configuration of Docker. Docker is a very powerful container technology that makes it easy to orchestrate the different tiers that compose the Cloud CMS infrastructure. Cloud CMS is inherently multi-tiered and scalable, making use of a completely decoupled architecture that is flexible for the needs of high content demand.

Docker makes it easy to orchestrate all these containers. It makes everything easy to run. We love Docker and so do our customers.

With Cloud CMS version 3.1.315, we now ship with sample Docker configurations for the following scenarios:

Quick Start

The basic quickstart kit is still offered and has been updated to utilize local, container volumes instead of named volumes. This is a good kit to run for folks who are getting started with Cloud CMS as it launches the full infrastructure on a single host. You can run the Docker host on your laptop or in Amazon EC2. Instructions are provided with the kit so that you can get going quickly (hence the name "quick start").

API Cluster

This configuration shows you how to launch Cloud CMS and cluster the API tier. Clustering the API tier allows you to scale out the request handling for your content API across many handlers and job workers. A load balancer runs ahead of the API containers, distributing requests across the cluster members. Cloud CMS maintains a distributed object cache and job queue so that runtime state is spread out evenly across the cluster. As new members join, runtime state rebalances automatically. This allows you to calibrate for performance, adjusting the number of API servers based on request throughput and job processing throughput.

OEM/Development

This configuration is provided primarily for our developer community and partners (OEM relationships, consultancy partners and integrators). It offers a sample configuration that lets you connect locally-developed Cloud CMS API and UI customizations. It is intended for scenarios where you run Cloud CMS locally and compile code changes that are then hot-linked into the running Docker infrastructure. Changes are picked up automatically so that you can connect your IDE debugger and walk through your code as it executes.

Roadmap

We have exciting plans for our Docker support in the near future. Among them is a plan to package Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) configuration files so that folks can work with ECS directly and independently of either Docker Machine or Docker Swarm. We would also like to provide sample configurations for Elastic Beanstalk as we've found that to be very effective. Finally, we've had requests for IBM BlueMix configurations and would like to provide a sample of that as well.

Customers have also asked for best practices around volume management (i.e. auto-mounting of EC2 volumes for persistent containers). This turns out to be an interesting area in the Docker world with all sorts of new innovations happening to address it. We will be provide sample configurations about how to do this as well.

Going back 15 years, we’ve seen the core of providing websites shift across various types of “platforms” - from Web Content Management (WCM) to Enterprise Content Management (ECM) to Customer Experience Management (CEM).  Every iteration involved another set of technologies, and associated migration headaches.

Each expansion also consumed more and more of the resulting presentation tier.  At first, this was mostly a good thing as no standard mechanisms existed to facilitate efforts.  However, in the last few years alone key frameworks have arisen to tackle this job much more effectively, such as:  EmberJS (2007), AngularJS (2009), and Backbone.js (2010).  Suddenly, the templating systems embedded within a CMS platform were not only unnecessary - but were actively getting in the way of good website design - much like a certain iceberg.

Cloud CMS allows you to fly over this barrier with an API-first approach.  No more shuffling deck chairs - sorry Leo.  We’ll take it from here...

One of the things that Cloud CMS does really well is forms - specifically, web and mobile forms.

If you've ever worked with the development of forms before, you know they're pretty tricky to put together. You typically have back-end code that is responsible for taking a data structure, validating it and writing it to a database. And you also have front-end code which does user-facing data validation that is cosmetically appealing (pretty red boxes) and helpful. You need to think about customizing the front-end controls (using JavaScript typically) to offer a compelling end-user experience while also offering an intuitive layout. Form elements need to interact together such that changes to one part of a form automatically update or validate with other parts of the form.

It gets more interesting as the requirements grow. For example, you may be asked to have your form work across multiple pages. Perhaps there is a need for a wizard with previous, next and submit buttons. Or perhaps there is conditional logic such that certain sections of a form only appear if a user selects something. Or perhaps the next button should take you to a different set of pages depending on your form's data (such as having to fill out certain income schedules for a tax payment submission).

And across all of that, there is the question of validation and making the user interface intuitive to end users as data changes. End users should be informed of when they are allowed to proceed to the next step in a form and be shown what updates are required or how they can fix things.

All of this is usually very challenging to deliver, particularly since it requires so much front-end and back-end code that needs to be kept in sync. As such, it has been a hard problem to generalize until very recently.

In the past few years, we've seen some new innovations that have made this easier.

One of these innovations is JSON schema which provides a descriptive way to structure your content. You can use JSON Schema to express forms, their data attributes and how they should be validated. With JSON Schema, you can singularly describe the constraints and validation logic of your form and then have that validation run on both the client and server side. You just write it once and it applies in both places.

Other technical innovations include modularized JavaScript and JSON document databases. Modularized JavaScript and other improvements to JavaScript (including EcmaScript 5 and the pending EcmaScript 6) allow for flexible development of intelligent controls that run in the browser. This effectively allows the browser to be much more intelligent about it's rendering and enables it to make late decisions about how to lay out the controls onto the page or bind them into wizards. This process can be driven entirely from configuration (also a JSON document) while still allowing for JS controllers and methods (packaged up into AMD modules).

Using HTML injection to build user interfaces or forms has really grown up in the world. Popular frameworks like Angular.js or Ember.js work this way. Instead of generating HTML on the back-end and passing it over to be shown in the browser, the front-end generates its own HTML using JSON data retrieved from the back-end. This allows for really beautiful user interfaces that are customized on-the-fly, per user and per device.

Cloud CMS builds on all of this to deliver really intuitive and easy web and mobile forms. We provide an open-source, JavaScript-based Cloud Forms engine that runs entirely on JSON Schema. It builds forms for you on-the-fly, using a configuration-driven approach. And it saves your form data right into Cloud CMS so that you can collaborate around it, report on it and leverage it within your business.

Several years ago, we decided to open-source our forms engine under the Apache 2.0 license so that anyone could use it within their projects. No strings attached and no funny stuff. We're big believers in open-source. It's not just that we want to give back, but we also believe that the open-source process is the best way to build a fantastic product.

The result was Alpaca Forms. We put a web site up and promoted releases, along with documentation, examples and community forums. The result has been amazing! We've watched as Alpaca has been used in all sorts of interesting projects, ranging from education and government to the entertainment and medical worlds. We're so glad that it has helped people to deliver amazing applications!

And beyond that, we've really enjoyed working with the community. Such great people with interesting ideas and lots of feedback. We've greatly enjoyed being in touch with such a great community!

Cloud CMS continues to build and offer Cloud CMS Forms as part of its offering. Each Cloud CMS subscription comes with a fully-engaged content management system that naturally works with Alpaca's web forms. We offer technical support, bug fixes and production-level SLA's for Alpaca within live applications.

If you'd like to learn more about Cloud CMS forms, visit our web site or Sign up for a Free Trial.

You have found the CMS to answer all your dreams and perhaps a lot more – now what? The quest for CMS nirvana is over and you are ready to start moving forward and onto the interesting challenges ahead.

Probably not – you still have to sell the CMS to your Management! Your management is likely less interested in the great architecture/features and more interested in the costs to the business of buying or even not buying the CMS.

Coming from the business side, this blog touches on the topics I would like technical teams to consider in their research. When presenting the CMS evaluations and recommendations to management the technical team should step into the Dark Side – they need to prepare and think like a manager.

Does the CMS meet the High level feature requirement(s)?

Evaluate against the written criteria and try to present the findings in an unbiased manner. Compromises may have to be made or perhaps the requirements were unrealistic. Either way – this is only one of the factors management is looking at so do not despair.

What features are critical?

What features are nice to have?

Don’t buy functionality you don’t need. It is easy to get distracted

Consider current and future needs?

* Features * Scalability

What is the Total Cost of Ownership?

This is usually an area technical people do not want to venture into but please persevere. You are often best positioned to calculate the costs: server sizing, whether technology is a fit for the organization, third party costs,..

Budget is always a factor in selection of products/solutions. You must go further and look at all costs, ie Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), because there are many hidden and less obvious costs with any CMS. Be prepared to consider all the costs and what is your basis for those costs – not just the obvious purchase price, but the setup/environment, etc... Even Open Source has a cost – ie. if this is a business critical system how is it supported

Annual license cost

License model (cpu/user) and cost of add-on components

Additional license costs as you scale

Cost of initial setup, maintenance, upgrades

Services cost for customizations (internal and external)

Training

Third party costs

Setup and Infrastructure. The costs can be significant and can have a financial/time/resource impact. On premise, hosted, Cloud, SaaS (Software as a Service),..

Think like your manager?

If you get in the same mindset as management you can prepare and present accordingly:

Return On Investment (ROI): A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments.

Time to Value (TTV): is a business term that describes the period of time between a request for a specific value and the initial delivery of the value requested. This is interesting as often the value is not monetary. A CMS can be critical decision for business growth and expansion.

Risks and Risk Mitigation: need to identify risks and have a risk mitigation plan

Not ‘Bleeding Edge’: rarely does a company want to be the first with a new release or product.

Core business: Rarely do you find a manager that is as excited as you with technology – they just need to know it works. I have had customers who have stated to me that if they have to get involved with the CMS then it is failing for them ie they are getting distracted from their core business

Managers are human too: Demo and trail will short cut a long discussion

What will be your involvement? (or what type of customer are you?)

Consider how you want to work with the CMS. Do you have available resources and budget to configure and maintain the CMS and 3rd party systems. These are key questions for management: management want to concentrate resource on their business and do not want time and resources to be distracted. A SaaS type model can be very appealing to a business in that it allows resources to concentrate on their business.

A SaaS (Software as a Service) type model or Fully managed service? SaaS CMS services can convert expensive capital outlay for servers and network equipment into a monthly operating expense, while also reducing the IT resources required to manage enterprise records. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_content_management

Want an Out of the Box product with minimal maintenance/support needed?

Is there an internal IT team and who are expected to own all aspects of the CMS going forward?

(Table inspired from “SaaS vs. In-House DAM – Which is Right For You” http://www.cmswire.com/cms/digital-asset-management/saas-vs-inhouse-dam-which-is-right-for-you-024761.php)

Is there Support/Help available?

You need to be sure that if you need help there is help available when you need it. If you are using the CMS for your company or for your customers you will need commercial support.

What commercial support is available?

Self help information

FAQ’s, search

Is there a community .

Is CMS information difficult to find?

The easier it is to find clear information the better. Also, it is difficult not to be suspicious when a vendor is not open – what are they trying to hide? Note: your manager is likely to perform their own research to some level so this must not be too challenging an experience.

Is there clear Product Pricing information publically available?

If Open Source (what is in the ‘free’ version and what is in the Commercial version)

Can you get a free Trial of the full product?

Is the CMS company a company you want to work with? - Integrity and References

Do some basics: email and talk to the vendor for information and support? When choosing a product/company consider it more as a win-win partnership. If you cannot see this partnership stop and reconsider!

Initial communication and type of communication. Including does the vendor have and aggressive inside sales team that calls you when you watch their video or download an article. The product should standup by itself.

Case studies and references

Trust? Do you like this company and do you feel you can rely on them to be with you after the initial deal

Final Comment: