Java
Content Repository API (JCR) Information
The Java Content Repository (JCR) is the Java community standard for storing
and managing unstructured complex content, such as mortgage documents.
ASC's PowerLender LOS uses the
Java Content Repository API (programming interface) to store and manage
all loan application attachments, including those gathered through
its imaging features. In general, a Java Content Repository provides
all of the features of an RDBMS, but also provides standard methods
for full-text indexing and search, versioning, access control, and
auditing.
Because PowerLender uses the standard JCR programming interface,
it may interface with any document management system that supports
the interface, and there are many. A lender's existing document management
system may already support the JCR API, so it may already support PowerLender.
With PowerLender you avoid vendor lock-in because you have the choice
of many underlying document management systems.
Below are links to articles that can help you learn about JCR:
Financial Services are Bullish on Open Source (2007-03-01 John Newton's weblog)
" One of the main clusters of adoption that we are seeing with Alfresco
is in Financial services. Four of the top 10 banks and two of the top
10 investment managers in the world are now using Alfresco. At least
that we know of, since it is open source and who knows who else is
using it. New financial forces like E*Trade are also using Alfresco.
So is the American Stock Exchange. This is without even trying. There
is only one bank that we targeted and I told them that it was my hobby
to sell them. We don't sell, people just try it."
GX
ships products natively compliant with JSR 170 (2007-02-26 GX press
release)
" Since its launch in 2005 Apache Jackrabbit has quickly become the
leading Java Content Repository (JCR) for the open source industry. … The JSR
170 standard is currently being developed in a second version under
the name JSR 283. GX, together with Day [Software] and major software
vendors such as IBM, Oracle, Sun, HP and SAP, is part of the international
expert group responsible for setting this standard."
One
Company's Search For The Perfect Open Source Software (2007-02-03 InformationWeek)
"
H&R Block wanted a flexible, easy- to-use document
management system to capture clients' tax documents and move them digitally
to its tax preparers' offices. It considered commercial products, such
as FileNet and Documentum. But H&R Block CIO Marc West eventually directed the team to focus on open source options,
since the cost of putting commercial options in 13,000 fields offices
wouldn't fly."
Catching up with the Java Content
Repository (2006-10-12 InfoQ)
" Similarly, the Graffito project, currently incubating at Apache,
provides a framework upon which to build content based applications. It provides,
among many other features, a uniform model to interact with which
can
sit on top of relational database schemas, WEBDAV servers, or JCR
repositories, allowing a uniform way to interact with these content stores. InfoQ
runs on a combination of Jackrabbit and Graffito, and has contributed
code to the Graffito project."
Advanced Java Content Repository API (2006-11-08 ONJava.com)
" Content management systems from different vendors have been available
for quite some time. All of these vendors ship their own version
of a content repository with their CMS systems, usually providing a proprietary
API for accessing their content repository. One of the primary goals
of JSR-170 was to make it easy for these CMS vendors to adopt JSR-170.
... This article is a step-by-step guide on how to develop your application
using two of the most popular optional features defined in JSR-170.
We will start our discussion with versioning, and then follow with
observation, which lets you execute some business logic when a particular
persistent change is made in the repository."
JCR:
A Practitioner's Perspective (2006-11 TheServerSide.com)
" The Java Content Repository is a complex specification, but it
does an excellent job of abstracting away the details of managing content.
Assuming your repository complies with the entire specification, you
can version your data, lock it, store any number of attributes (with
a large number of data types), validate your structure (with custom
node types), and query it with both XPath and SQL, depending on which
is more comfortable to you. JackRabbit, as the reference implementation,
is remarkably capable for simple deployments, both in capabilities
and in scalability (as a JCR-backed application has successfully survived
slashdotting, in one known example.)"
What's
the point of JCR? (2006-10-18 Nuxeo Blogs)
" Nuxeo is switching its ECM to Java, and we're using JCR for our
document storage. JCR (Java Content Repository, standardized by JSR-170 and
the upcoming JSR-283) is a young specification with a promising future
— but what's its point, you may ask, as all existing content management
systems are already storing content very well without it? Its goal
is interoperability between vendors, which will make it possible for
people who write applications needing to store content to have a unified
API for such manipulations. All major content repository vendors are
active in the JSR-283 expert group, and all are working on JCR bindings
for their various proprietary repositories."
What is Java Content Repository (2006-10-04 ONJava.com)
"The JCR-170 API has different advantages for different stakeholders
in content repository space. ... Corporations won't have to face
problem of vendor lock-in. More commonly, many corporations have more than
one CMS either because different departments choose to use different
CMSs in the past, or because some acquired company used a different
CMS system. In the past, corporations spent a lot of money getting
these different systems to interact with each other. With JSR-170,
they can be assured that same application will work with all CMSs."
Commoditization
of ECM (2006-09-05 Content Log)
"There have been many attempts to standardize the Content Management
technology space -- ODMA, DMA, JCR, iECM. However, it is in the
context of the market consolidation and commoditization that major players
are participating more in the standards process. Starting with
JSR-170, despite the long time required to develop that specification, there
are now moves by the major vendors to actually implement standards.
IBM has been working on their implementation for over a year
and intends to make major announcements in the later part of this year. Documentum
plans on providing an implementation in their next release, as
does
FileNet. Oracle has made JSR-170 the foundation to combine all
their content technologies, including content access from Oracle Applications."
ECM
consolidation is helping no one (2006-08-17 InfoWorld)
"This is why it's so important to adhere to industry standards like
JSR-170 (which none of the companies above do). Only Alfresco,
Day (Apache Jackrabbit), and some few others do. So, if you're an enterprise
that doesn't want to have its content locked up and owned by
a vendor, why would you ever entrust your content to a proprietary repository?
It's foolish. And it's by no means necessary."
ECM
Consolidation (2006-08-16 Content Log)
"What will probably happen (fingers crossed) is an acceleration of
the standardization process. All the major vendors - IBM, Oracle, and EMC
- have a reason to create a standardized way of accessing
their repositories. It shows in the faster (but still not fast enough) pace that
JSR-283
and iECM are taking. Not only does it help customers to access
each other’s repositories, it help provides a consistent way of accessing
their own repositories."
Oracle
Opens Content Management to The Masses (2006-06-15 internetnews.com)
"Phillips said the enterprise content management market has evolved
from 10-15 years ago when a lot of small vendors tried to solve the
content management problem with proprietary point solutions that were
often tricky to implement. Fast-forward to the present: Customers want
content management software based on open standards to help them meet
the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and other compliance mandates
at a time when their data glut is growing." Note:
Oracle says Oracle Content Database Release 2 will provide
JSR-170 level 1 (read/query only) conformance, which is
inadequate for
PowereLender. Later versions may provide full JSR-170 or
JSR-283 API conformance.
JSR
170: A Standard Content Repository (2006-05-05 InfoWorld)
"JSR 170 is an admirable starting point. It benefits enterprises
by not tying you to a particular repository, eases development, and streamlines
repository management. In fact, some organizations have
already consolidated
dozens of disparate repositories into just one or two.
Finally, application vendors can focus on improving their product's unique features
and
leave the content repository part to companies that do
that best."
Introducing
the Java Content Repository API (2005-08-23 IBM developerWorks)
"In this article, I've provided you with a broad introduction to the
many features offered by the JSR-170 specification. The final specification
release, approved on June 17, 2005, has already brought about two commercial
implementations: Day Software's CRX and Obinary's Magnolia Power Pack.
The introduction of JSR-170 has also given rise to corporate open source
portals and content management systems such as Magnolia and the eXo
platform. Most importantly, JSR-170 has strong support from industry
leaders, including SAP AG, Macromedia, and IBM, establishing its use
and importance in the enterprise landscape. Just as object-relationship
mapping frameworks transformed database programming, the Java Content
Repository API has the potential to dramatically change the way we
think about and develop content applications."
JSR-170:
What's in it for me? (2005-04-15 CMS Watch)
"JSR-170 promises the Java world, and possibly beyond, a unified API
that allows accessing any compliant repository in a vendor- or implementation-neutral
fashion, leading to the kind of clean separation of concerns that characterizes
modern IT architectures. Some people call JSR-170 the "JDBC
of Content Repositories." Moreover, in the longer term, JSR-170 will offer the potential for true content
repository infrastructure that independent application
developers can use to build their applications on,
without any partner fees or commercial
association."
JSR
170 Overview: Standardizing the Content Repository Interface (2006-03-13
Day Software)
"The Content Repository API for Java Technology (JCR) is poised
to revolutionize the development of J2SE/J2EETM applications
in the same way that the
Web has revolutionized the development of network-based
applications. JCR’s interface designers have followed the guiding principles
of the Web to simplify the interactions between an application
and its content repository, thus replacing many application-specific or storage-specific
interfaces with a single, generic API for content
repository manipulation."
