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Remember the Java mantra from years ago: “Write once, run anywhere”? San Mateo, Calif.-based DNN is doing essentially the same thing, only with content management.
Whether it’s text, still images or video, and whether an editor/designer is working in print or online media, content has always been made to conform to the structure and limitations of the media. Text has always needed to be trimmed or lengthened and artwork has to be cropped and sized to fit layouts, along with other requirements.
In addition, as content is transferred from one medium to another, it has needed to conform to whatever framework that is required. Not anymore, however, because content-as-a-service is here.
Content-as-a-Service is Here
The company based on the open source content management project known as DotNetNuke — DNN for short — has launched its newest edition, Evoq 9, which provides omnichannel publishing inside a microservices architecture. This allows text and images to be created once, then deployed wherever they need to go, with no other editing or file-modification needed.
Evoq 9, released Dec. 13, includes a key technology called Liquid Content, a new content-as-a-service platform delivered as a microservice via DNN’s Liquid Content Cloud, which, in turn, runs on Microsoft Azure’s public cloud.
Included in Liquid Content are the following:
–a headless CMS to manage content; –a content analytics application to measure and analyze the impact of content;
–a stateless API to access and retrieve content;
–delivery of services via Liquid Content Cloud, which runs on the Microsoft Azure cloud; and–the content delivery and presentation features of the Evoq CMS, including a library of 100-plus visualizers; Liquid Content facilitates the intelligent re-use of content beyond websites, to apps, devices and to internet of things devices.
Once Monolithic, Now More Agile
“Our product (DotNetNuke) has been around quite a while, and traditionally it has been run on customers’ own servers or hosted at another location,” Vice-President of Product Management Will Morganweck told eWEEK. “It has been a rather monolithic application. If someone wanted to modify anything, no matter what features were needed, they had to upgrade the entire application.
“As we looked around in an effort to improve this process, we decided upon a microservices approach in order to deliver individual features from the cloud. With Evoq 9, we’ve taken that step with three major features: our analytics systems, another is our form builder, and third is Liquid Content, our structured content delivery system.”
In Evoq 9, Google analytics has been added, so that stakeholders can manage and monitor page view performance, along with other data points. Content is created first, then the pages — not the other way around as conventional CMSes do it.
Because all Liquid Content features are delivered as microservices, DNN can publish weekly or daily updates to individual features. All customers will receive updates instantaneously, which provides enhancements and fixes as quickly as possible.
While most headless CMS platforms require developers to create front-end experiences, DNN uses the longstanding capabilities of the Evoq CMS to deliver content without writing a single line of code.
‘Headless CMS’
“Evoq is the head that’s attached to the headless CMS of Liquid Content. Customers will receive all of the content delivery and presentation features they’ve come to expect, along with visualizers and other new features,” DNN President and CEO Navin Nagiah said.
“Liquid takes the shape of the objects it’s placed in and flows around barriers and obstacles. Our vision with Evoq 9 is to transform your content into liquid. Your content becomes fluid and adaptable, and can easily be published to any channel. We’re bringing multi-tenant software as a service to a CMS, which is quite rare in our industry.”
DNN’s software is used by hundreds of enterprises, including the Bank of America, Aetna, True Value Hardware, Whirlpool, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and Sports Direct to deploy business-critical websites.
For more information about DNN, go here.