FileNet Update Boosts Content Management

Document management specialist FileNet Corp. is readying its latest FileNet P8 ECM platform to help customers take advantage of business-process-based content activation through better enterprise content management.

Set to be introduced this week at the AIIM On Demand Conference & Exposition in Philadelphia, FileNet P8 3.5 features CFS (Content Federation Services), which enables the software to integrate with and manage a broad range of content from both FileNet and non-FileNet repositories, said officials of FileNet, in Costa Mesa, Calif.

CFS allows enterprises to search, catalog, classify, delete and update content within isolated content pools across an organization through a unified catalog. This capability is buoyed through integration with FileNets Records Manager suite, which can declare items as records and lock them in remote repositories to ensure their protection.

Through CFS, customers will no longer be required to copy content into a single repository to declare it as a record. In addition, the new software enables policy-based activation of content outside FileNet repositories for specific business process management functions, said FileNet officials.

Nap Arthus, assistant vice president for New York-based Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., said he is looking forward to upgrading to FileNets P8 3.5 to reap the content accessibility benefits of CFS.

"Content Federation Services, as a matter of fact, is one of the major benefits we see in moving to the new platform," said Arthus. "It eliminates multiple iterations of database implementations across separate products at MetLife. The ability to be able to abstract the access of that to one place toward multiple repositories we see as a big plus."

Click here to read about FileNets ZeroClick enterprise content management suite, which automates file management processes.

Further blurring the lines between storage and ECM, FileNet will announce at AIIM that it has partnered with Hitachi Data Systems Corp., a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd., to create an integrated offering designed to bolster e-mail management and ensure regulatory compliance.

The jointly developed technology integrates FileNets P8 3.5, featuring Content Manager, Email Manager, Records Manager and Image Manager, with HDS Data Retention Utility software to help customers lock down and preserve large volumes of documents in their IT systems.

Check out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, reviews and analysis on enterprise and small business storage hardware and software.