Over the years, Enterprise Content Management (ECM) / Content Services Platform (CSP) application architectures have evolved from client/server applications in the 90’s to web and cloud application architectures in the 2000’s. The traditional architecture for ECM applications struggles with scalability, incurs unnecessary costs, and exhibits a lack of flexibility in adapting to dynamic business needs. As a result, newer microservices architectures have started to replace the traditional three-tier paradigm. This transition is something Gartner first noticed with the 2017 declaration that ECM is dead, and the retirement of the ECM term in favor of Content Services Platforms (CSP).

This post explores how the microservices approach addresses the challenges of the past, offering scalability, cost efficiency, and adaptability for the practical demands of modern content services applications. 

Traditional ECM Solution Architecture

The traditional architecture approach for content services solutions utilized a three-tier approach:

• Application Tier – hosts the application interface(s) that users connect to via a browser or mobile device.
• Content Server Tier – hosts the primary ECM content server.  Examples include Documentum Content Server, Alfresco Content Services, etc.  Some solutions also host a search/index and transformation server here.
• Data Tier – hosts the ECM database and file/data storage, typically delivered via a SAN or NAS device.

Three-tier architectures worked well in the 2000s and early 2010s. However, they were not without issues such as:

• Scalability – One of the biggest challenges with the traditional three-tier approach is scalability.  If application usage exceeds capacity, physical servers and/or memory must be added and integrated into the network and properly load balanced.  Additionally, once an environment is scaled up, it is rarely scaled down if usage changes.  For applications with seasonal or other fluctuations, it is very difficult and expensive to scale both up and down easily.
• Cost – Similar to our blog post on the benefits of cloud object stores over traditional ECM storage solutions, the overall architecture must be built to support more capacity than what is actually needed.  Once usage hits a certain threshold, more capacity can be added, but by definition, the cost of the overall architecture will always be greater than what is actually utilized.
• Maintenance and Flexibility – A traditional architecture is tightly coupled between components.  Care must be taken to perform complex maintenance on various servers and components without affecting other areas.  This monolithic design causes the architecture to lack flexibility and is slow to adapt to changing business requirements.

Over the years, there have been incremental improvements to the traditional architecture, including virtualization, cloud tiers, and application containers, which improve the overall architecture over what was available in the early 2000s.  However, with the fast-paced advancement of cloud technologies and microservices architectures, significant improvements have been made to address the limitations of traditional architectures discussed above.

Cloud Microservices Architecture

Architecting a content services application utilizing cloud-native microservices utilizes a different approach.  Rather than creating defined application tiers, each application component is deployed as a small, loosely coupled, and independently deployable service, each encapsulating a different business function.  These services communicate via well-defined APIs and can be developed, deployed, and scaled independently. The cloud-native aspect of microservices has the added benefit of supporting elasticity, scalability, and resilience by default.  The microservices approach enhances agility, fosters rapid development cycles, and optimizes resource utilization in response to the demands of modern, scalable, and distributed applications.

A cloud-based microservices architecture has many advantages over the traditional approach:

• Scalability – Cloud microservices are extremely easy to scale, both up and down as business needs fluctuate over time.  Almost all cloud services are inherently scalable and will scale automatically without any input from an IT resource.  In some cases, like Amazon S3, these services are infinitely scalable.
• Cost – Unlike traditional architecture, where there is always additional unused capacity, cloud-based microservices are priced on a pay-as-you-go model where customers pay only for the capacity utilized.  This model, coupled with easily scaling resources up and down, allows the customer to only pay for actual usage.
• Modular and Flexible – The modular microservices structure allows engineers to focus on individual components, making it easier to understand, develop, expand, test, and maintain specific functionalities. Importantly, each microservice can be updated, deployed, and scaled independently of others, offering a level of flexibility crucial for adapting to changing business requirements.

Choosing a Content Services Architecture Strategy

Putting it all together, below are two options for content services architecture strategy:

When choosing between the two options, consider the following points:

• When implementing a traditional three-tier architecture:
  • At least five servers must be procured for the production environment.  Ten or more servers would be needed for scaling or High Availability / Disaster Recovery (HA/DR) environments.
  • Servers must be patched and maintained at the OS level as well as for the Content Services software.
• When implementing a microservices architecture:
  • No servers are needed.
  • The environment scales up and down based on actual usage needs.
  • Patching and server maintenance are not required.

Summary

In navigating the evolution of ECM application architecture, transitioning from traditional three-tier structures to the contemporary realm of cloud-native microservices marks a pivotal shift. The traditional ECM solution architecture prevalent in the 2000s faced challenges of scalability, cost inefficiencies, and limited flexibility. The advent of cloud microservices architecture revolutionizes content services applications, creating a paradigm where each component operates as a small, independent service. This cloud-native approach not only addresses historical challenges but improves scalability, cost-effectiveness, and unparalleled modularity. With their inherent elasticity and pay-as-you-go model, cloud microservices emerge as the future-ready solution, offering a dynamic, modular, and flexible architecture that adeptly meets the demands of modern, scalable, and distributed content services applications.

We’d love to hear your thoughts below, or you can contact us.  Stay tuned to the Docuvela blog as we explore this topic further.