From: John Christian (john.christian@TheCReGroup.com)
Date: Fri Mar 04 2005 - 11:48:54 EST
Sunmanagers,
Thank you for all of the expert opinions! All of the suggestions look like
excellent applications. All of them could probably be adapted to our needs
with varying degrees of effort. My focus is on finding something that provides
most of what we need with the least amount of installation, configuration, and
customization effort.
THANKS TO:
Tom Grassia FAQ-O-Matic
Carl Ma MS-SharePoint
Andrew Hall Docbook
Anothony D'Atri RCS a webtree
NO UCE Owl
Alan Pae http://alanpae.tripod.com/index.htm
<http://alanpae.tripod.com/index.htm> (then drill down)
Ric Anderson DokuWiki
VEGH Karoly Wikipedia
David Talkington TWiki
Clive McAdam wiki
Lars Hecking Apache module mod_dav, DAVexplorer
Tim Chipman myDms
BRIEF SUMMARY:
Based on our specific needs, list feedback, and what we've read so far, the
front runners *at this point* are Owl, OpenCMS, and Wiki-derived. All
suggestions received are outlined farther below.
Owl
http://sourceforge.net/projects/owl/
<http://webmail.thecregroup.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://sourceforge.
net/projects/owl/>
Pros: existing docs can remain in native format, user logins, version control
Cons: need to setup MySQL or Postgresql
OpenCMS
http://www.opencms.org/opencms/en/ <http://www.opencms.org/opencms/en/>
Pros: existing docs can remain in native format, WYSIWIG input, familiar
Explorer-style viewing, per-project/topic input forms
Cons: WYSIWIG support in IE only, need to setup search engine
MediaWiki, DokuWiki, TikiWiki
http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/ <http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/>
Pros: Popular tool with many add-ons, widely used for content management, it's
fun to say "wiki wiki wiki"
Cons: overwhelming, may have too many features and add-ons, PHB's may need to
learn formatting syntax, not sure is it can manage legacy docs.
BTW: My favorite response from [an anonymous writer] shared the following
insights: "I don't create documentation for others to use. I put everything on
a personal apache webserver that runs out of my home dir. So when I'm fired
and 'userdel -r username' hits me, all evidence of my presence is obliterated.
They can hire me back as a consultant when they want to know how it works."
Yes, they were joking.
ADDITIONAL SUMMARY:
Most people agreed that a central folder with subfolders will sprawl and
become unmanageable. The infamous intranet site will never get updated if
people are expected to manually update static html pages. Converting all
information to [SGML | XML | SML | other] sounds neat and provides great
publishing options. Probably works great if starting fresh, but converting
existing assets can be time consuming. Others echoed my concerns that PHBs
just aren't going to learn the markups.
Obviously, there's a problem with legacy documentation stuck in Word, Excel,
Visio, and other proprietary formats. Integrating these assets into a DMS/CMS
is inherently difficult. As one of the list members gently suggested: "MS-word
.docs are a blight on the flesh of humanity." Here's a weblog that captures
the essence of why Word docs suck for collaboration:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3793
<http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3793>
Additional resources I found included:
http://www.cmswatch.com <http://www.cmswatch.com/> CMS reviews, summaries,
and more. They suggest there are over 1000 products that claim to manage
web-accessible content. I believe it! They focus on the top 40. No necessarily
the best 40, but the most significant players. Focused on commercial products,
but does have an open source section.
http://www.la-grange.net/cms <http://www.la-grange.net/cms> List of open
source content management systems. Not an exhaustive list, but a good place to
get ideas.
BTW: Alan Pae's site (http://alanpae.tripod.com/index.htm
<http://alanpae.tripod.com/index.htm> ) has an enormous list of tools in some
way related to the Solaris world organized by categories. I'll definitely be
going back to this site for the wealth of other links. The documentation tools
listed (that I found) seemed to be more focused on collecting highly technical
system information. These might be great for feeding into the DMS we envision,
but don't seem likely to support our overall needs for general content
management.
Below are the other tools suggested by list members. Please note: Any
pros/cons are based on a cursory inspection of the tool's web site with a
focus on the needs of our specific environment.
FAQ-o-matic
http://faqomatic.sourceforge.net/fom-serve/cache/1.html
<http://faqomatic.sourceforge.net/fom-serve/cache/1.html>
Pros: mature, easy to add text content, small/quick/easy to deploy
Cons: input is text centric; therefore, doesn't consume proprietary files
Docbook
http://www.docbook.org/ <http://www.docbook.org/>
Pros: geared towards technical documentation, O'Reilly uses it, generates
documentation in multiple styles
Cons: Existing docs must be converted to SGML or XML, doesn't consume
proprietary files
myDms
http://dms.markuswestphal.de/about.html
<http://dms.markuswestphal.de/about.html>
Pros: claims to have many of the features we need
Cons: looks like a 1 guy development team, can it consume proprietary docs?
Track web content with RCS
http://www.gnu.org/software/rcs/rcs.html
<http://www.gnu.org/software/rcs/rcs.html>
Pros: RCS is already used at this site for code management
Cons: doesn't consume proprietary files
Apache module mod_dav, DAVexplorer
http://www.webdav.org/ <http://www.webdav.org/>
Pros: attractive to engineers managing web content
Cons: appears immature, last release was 2001, may require extensive
customization
Sun's Configuration and Service Tracker
http://www.sun.com/download/products.xml?id=3fcdb0dd
<http://www.sun.com/download/products.xml?id=3fcdb0dd>
Pros: Continuous tracking of h/w and s/w events on Solaris hosts, historical
data automatically maintained, could be used to feed our DMS
Cons: no provision for manually created documents
Borland's StarTeam
http://www.borland.com/starteam/ <http://www.borland.com/starteam/>
Pros: I'm familiar with it, robust, enterprise level
Cons: probably overkill for our needs, not free
MS-SharePoint
http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/ <http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/>
Pros: Integrates into MS environments, user-customizable portals,
Cons: no MS-Windows servers at this site, not free
Matrix One PDM
http://www.matrixone.com/ <http://www.matrixone.com/>
Pros: robust, enterprise level, pretty marketing PDFs
Cons: probably overkill for our needs, not free, too many buzzwords
HTH,
-John Christian
ORIGINAL POST
I'm looking for suggestions on a centralized documentation management system
that would be shared by a team of 5 sysadmins and a few PHB's. There are some
similar threads in the archives, but they're a few years old. I'm interested
in the latest trends used by list members and their experience with actually
using a particular tool/approach over time.
The documents would include server build recipes, backup/restore procedures,
inventory spreadsheets, meeting notes, good PDF's, outage calendar, and other
documentation related to the IT department. The documentation that currently
exists includes files such as Word, Excel, Visio, txt files, e-mails, and
more. We would like to have a central repository that includes most of the
following features:
runs on a 'nix
browser accessible
searchable
login password
revision control
easy to upload new content
menus self update with new content
We've considered:
a shared folder with topical subfolders (too much dir sprawl, no revision
control)
internal web server (updating html code and FTPing new docs sucks for PHBs)
TikiWiki
OpenCms
convert everything to XML (cool, but probably not gonna happen)
Borland StarTeam (spend money on s/w instead of beer? yuck!)
Pros, cons, and any suggestions are very welcome. Will summarize.
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