TIFFs in documentum

[Rocky]

Hi, the place I'm working at is hell bent on using documentum to
replace their current system. Their documents consist of anywhere
from 1 to 9,999 individual TIFF files (not multi-page TIFFs). They
way to keep this format so that they can meet the user requirement of
sub-second page flipping time and a max time of 2 seconds to receive
the first page of a document. For this reason, they don't want to
convert the TIFFs to multi-page or convert them to PDF files.

I'm just wondering if anyone can offer any advice on using documentum
in this way. I don't really have much experience with documentum and
I haven't really seen any good information on using documentum in this
way.

Are we just crazy to use it like this, or is it feasible?

Thanks,
-- Rocky

[Haines, Darrell]

Rocky,

Don't trash TIFFs, they do what they do very well... yes, converting to
PDFs would hurt performance as PDFs are bigger and require more cycles
for a client to present. How many TIFFs in total do you have?

My situation (nightmare) is a big one and similar to yours. We've got
half a billion TIFFs that we're migrating to an EMC Centera system. The
Centeras are nice, real nice... but our next step is to load image index
data into Documentum. There are a lot of zeros on the right side of
Documentum's storage requirements. Currently we store the index data in
an RDBMS which uses a single table and less than 100 bytes per image.
it seems Documentum requires in excess of 2,000 bytes per image and does
multiple table joins. It suspect that we're beyond the abilities of
Documentum and its Oracle friend, but we'll wait and see.

I welcome any discussion with someone facing a similar situation.

Darrell


________________________________

From: documentum-users-***@public.gmane.org
[mailto:documentum-users-***@public.gmane.org] On Behalf Of Rocky
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 9:35 AM
To: documentum-users-***@public.gmane.org
Subject: [documentum-users] TIFFs in documentum



Hi, the place I'm working at is hell bent on using documentum to
replace their current system. Their documents consist of anywhere
from 1 to 9,999 individual TIFF files (not multi-page TIFFs). They
way to keep this format so that they can meet the user requirement of
sub-second page flipping time and a max time of 2 seconds to receive
the first page of a document. For this reason, they don't want to
convert the TIFFs to multi-page or convert them to PDF files.

I'm just wondering if anyone can offer any advice on using documentum
in this way. I don't really have much experience with documentum and
I haven't really seen any good information on using documentum in this
way.

Are we just crazy to use it like this, or is it feasible?

Thanks,
-- Rocky

[Puttock, Bob]

Before the time of multi-page TIFF files Documentum supported storing multiple TIFF content files for a single object. The IDfSysObject.setFileEx and IDfSysObject.getFileEx APIs have a pageNumber parameter for just this purpose. This way you can have one document object and store all of the TIFF files with it. In normal use, this parameter is always 0 and the document has only 1 content file. You have to customize the interface to take advantage of this feature.


Bob Puttock

________________________________

From: Rocky
Sent: Fri 4/27/2007 9:35 AM
To: documentum-users-***@public.gmane.org
Subject: [documentum-users] TIFFs in documentum



Hi, the place I'm working at is hell bent on using documentum to
replace their current system. Their documents consist of anywhere
from 1 to 9,999 individual TIFF files (not multi-page TIFFs). They
way to keep this format so that they can meet the user requirement of
sub-second page flipping time and a max time of 2 seconds to receive
the first page of a document. For this reason, they don't want to
convert the TIFFs to multi-page or convert them to PDF files.

I'm just wondering if anyone can offer any advice on using documentum
in this way. I don't really have much experience with documentum and
I haven't really seen any good information on using documentum in this
way.

Are we just crazy to use it like this, or is it feasible?

Thanks,
-- Rocky

[Wanda Phillips]

I don't see any reason why you couldn't do this. To Documentum, the images
are just objects. Doesn't matter what's inside. The issue would come with
the viewer used, I suppose.
Will the users be accessing Documentum to view the TIFFs? What mechanism is
going to be used?
Wanda

[Mon Lee]

You can use vitrual documents. Put all the pages of a document in one single virtual document. You might have to customize what ever viewer you are using.


----- Original Message ----
From: Rocky <rockytriton-/***@public.gmane.org>
To: documentum-users-***@public.gmane.org
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 9:35:26 AM
Subject: [documentum-users] TIFFs in documentum

Hi, the place I'm working at is hell bent on using documentum to
replace their current system. Their documents consist of anywhere
from 1 to 9,999 individual TIFF files (not multi-page TIFFs). They
way to keep this format so that they can meet the user requirement of
sub-second page flipping time and a max time of 2 seconds to receive
the first page of a document. For this reason, they don't want to
convert the TIFFs to multi-page or convert them to PDF files.

I'm just wondering if anyone can offer any advice on using documentum
in this way. I don't really have much experience with documentum and
I haven't really seen any good information on using documentum in this
way.

Are we just crazy to use it like this, or is it feasible?

Thanks,
-- Rocky




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[pawank]

I do not have a first-hand experience with your exact situation, but I
can share what I know.

I believe that the kind of viewing requirements you are talking about
are not unique to you. Check out Archive Services for Reports
documentation, presentations, etc. I recall from a product presentation
that they combine numerous documents for storage and still let you view
them independently.

Also look at how content file storage (relationship between an object
and the associated content) is implemented in Documentum. It lets you
point to pages within documents.

I have seen a demo from SnowBound software where they have products for
high performance viewing of documents - check here
<http://www.snowbound.com/products/product_overview.html> .

I hope these pointers are actionable and you can make progress in your
search for a solution.

Thanks,
~Pawan
doQuent <http://doquent.com>

Post by Rocky
Hi, the place I'm working at is hell bent on using documentum to
replace their current system. Their documents consist of anywhere
from 1 to 9,999 individual TIFF files (not multi-page TIFFs). They
way to keep this format so that they can meet the user requirement of
sub-second page flipping time and a max time of 2 seconds to receive
the first page of a document. For this reason, they don't want to
convert the TIFFs to multi-page or convert them to PDF files.
I'm just wondering if anyone can offer any advice on using documentum
in this way. I don't really have much experience with documentum and
I haven't really seen any good information on using documentum in this
way.
Are we just crazy to use it like this, or is it feasible?
Thanks,
-- Rocky

[matthiasfesl]

Hi!
some remarks about EMC Documentum Archive Services for Reports (ASR):
For a mass import of TIFFs you would create CSV files with a record
for each document. Each record contains the path & file name of the
TIFF in one field and any metadata in other fields.
ASR can pack all the TIFFs (as defined in one CSV file) into a PDF -
so you would have less files to maintain on the storage media and
improved compliance (PDF or PDF/A instead of TIFF).
When packing many documents into a single PDF then the bulk import
may run with 20K-50K documents per hour on a single Windows CPU.
Standard/nonASR import functions using some Documentum script would
be 5-10 times slower.
Each document is individually accessible although it is part of a
large PDF. There is a server plug-in to extract the requested pages
from the large file for each access. The mechanism in the background
it completely transparent.
Due to the use of linearized PDF (copy of xref table at begin of
file) there usually is no difference in accessing a small PDF
directly or accessing pages extracted from a large PDF.
Page flipping performance: there you have to compare a PDF reader
with a TIFF reader. An optimized TIFF reader may be faster than
Adobe Reader. The TIFF solution requires installation of some
software on all clients while everybody should have a PDF reader.
Regards,
Matthias

Post by pawank
I do not have a first-hand experience with your exact situation, but I
can share what I know.
I believe that the kind of viewing requirements you are talking about
are not unique to you. Check out Archive Services for Reports
documentation, presentations, etc. I recall from a product

presentation

Post by pawank
that they combine numerous documents for storage and still let you view
them independently.
Also look at how content file storage (relationship between an

object

Post by pawank
and the associated content) is implemented in Documentum. It lets you
point to pages within documents.
I have seen a demo from SnowBound software where they have

products for

Post by pawank
high performance viewing of documents - check here
<http://www.snowbound.com/products/product_overview.html> .
I hope these pointers are actionable and you can make progress in your
search for a solution.
Thanks,
~Pawan
doQuent <http://doquent.com>

Post by Rocky
Hi, the place I'm working at is hell bent on using documentum to
replace their current system. Their documents consist of

anywhere

Post by pawank

Post by Rocky
from 1 to 9,999 individual TIFF files (not multi-page TIFFs).

They

Post by pawank

Post by Rocky
way to keep this format so that they can meet the user

requirement of

Post by pawank

Post by Rocky
sub-second page flipping time and a max time of 2 seconds to

receive

Post by pawank

Post by Rocky
the first page of a document. For this reason, they don't want to
convert the TIFFs to multi-page or convert them to PDF files.
I'm just wondering if anyone can offer any advice on using

documentum

Post by pawank

Post by Rocky
in this way. I don't really have much experience with

documentum and

Post by pawank

Post by Rocky
I haven't really seen any good information on using documentum in this
way.
Are we just crazy to use it like this, or is it feasible?
Thanks,
-- Rocky