Content Manager components

The system architecture consists of a core resting on databases, that communicates with external components through an integration layer. This architecture supports all major open standards, including XML, XSL, REST, WSDL, and W3C.

Overview

The following diagram provides an overview of all major components in the physical system architecture:

Content Manager core

The Content Manager core interacts directly with either Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server, as well as with the full-text indexing engine.

The core supports an object-relational data model. This means that the table structure in the database remains the same even when clients define their custom metadata in the repository. It includes private XAPIs that communicates with the Web Client, internal APIs that communicate with the web services, and the following services:
  • Translation Builder
  • The crawler service
  • The background task service

The core contains the Repository, and handles the logic responsible for content creation, review, translation, and publication. It also provides specific connectivity functionality to link the system to external translation management systems and publishing engines.

The Content Manager communication is developed in .NET technology.

Customization

The Content Manager behavior can be customized through tools built on top of the Repository:
  • Plugins (such as the Write plugins or the Publish plugins).
  • Custom background tasks.
  • Custom APIs.

Web Services API

The Web Services API enables third-party systems integration, for example with authoring tools, PLM systems, publishing engines, and so on. Authoring Bridge, our standard desktop client tool, uses the Web Services API to access the Repository.

DITA Open Toolkit

All publish require a transformation of the XML content into the target format. When transforming to HTML, Content Manager uses the DITA-OT standards, either directly through DITA-OT use or using an engine that applies DITA-OT standards.

Web Client and client tools

Content Manager provides the following applications off-the-shelf:
  • Content Manager Web Client: a web client to access the Repository through an internet web browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome. The Web Client gives access to Content Editor, an easy to use browser-based XML content editor.
  • Publication Manager: a desktop client that allows technical writers and information architects to assemble modular content into deliverable publications.
  • Authoring Bridge: an add-in for major XML authoring tools; it allows technical writers to access the Repository through their XML authoring tool.
  • Condition Manager: a desktop client to define and manage conditions in the repository.

Stateless component model

All Content Manager components are developed according to the stateless component model. Following the stateless component model, a request made by a user is loaded into memory, fulfilled, and then unloaded. Subsequent requests by the same user are treated just like any request; the server makes no attempt to remember what the user has previously requested.

Stateless development brings two important advantages in terms of:

  • System availability and maintenance: the servers hosting the business and presentation logic can be swapped, provided their configurations are identical (for example, the database location should be the same on both servers). This means that servers can be brought down for system maintenance without any application downtime, since there is no single point of failure.
  • System performance: stateless components enable Network Load Balancing (NLB) and Component Load Balancing (CLB) to dispatch requests to the processor with the lightest workload.