Content Management Interoperability Services

CMIS

Type of format	Enterprise Content Management
Extended from	SOAP

Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) is an open standard that defines an abstraction layer for controlling diverse document management systems and repositories using web protocols. CMIS defines a domain model plus Web Services and Restful AtomPub (RFC5023) bindings that can be used by applications. OASIS, a web standards consortium, approved CMIS as an OASIS Specification on May 1, 2010.

CMIS provides a common data model covering typed files and folders with generic properties that can be set or read. There is a set of services for adding and retrieving documents ('objects'). There may be an access control system, a checkout and version control facility, and the ability to define generic relations. Two protocol bindings are defined, one using WSDL and SOAP and another using Representational State Transfer (REST), using the Atom convention. The model is based on common architectures of document management systems.

Although initiated by AIIM, CMIS is now administered by the OASIS standards body. Participants in the process include Adobe Systems Incorporated, Alfresco, EMC, eXo, FatWire, HP, IBM, ISIS Papyrus, Liferay, Microsoft, Open Text, Oracle and SAP. The standard is available for public comment at OASIS.

Specification Progress & TC Members

The specification is currently approved as OASIS CMIS v1.0 standard.

There are public discussion lists.

The Technical Committee (TC) includes the following organizations: Adobe Systems Incorporated, AIIM, Alfresco Software, ASG Software Solutions, Booz Allen Hamilton, Content Technologies, dotCMS, EMC Corporation, Entropysoft, Exalead, Inc., FatWire, Fidelity Investments, GX Software, HP, IBM, ISIS Papyrus, Microsoft Corporation, Nuxeo, Open Text Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Quark, Pearson PLC, SAP AG, Sun Microsystems, Wells Fargo, WeWebU Software AG, and Zia Consulting.

CMIS Benefits

The CMIS specification provides a Web services interface that:

• Is language-agnostic (REST and SOAP are implemented in many languages)
• Decouples web service and content. So CMIS can be used to access an historic document repository.

Historical notes

The initial work of developing the momentum and use cases that led to the CMIS proposal was conducted by the iECM Initiative sponsored by AIIM. This ongoing project to foster interoperability among ECM systems is supported by the collaborative efforts of governmental, commercial, vendor, and consulting organizations.

List of implementations

CMIS Servers

Software	Capability support	Open source	Notes
Alfresco 3.3+	ACL=manage AllVersionsSearchable=false Changes=objectidsonly ContentStreamUpdatability=anytime GetDescendants=true GetFolderTree=true Multifiling=true PWCSearchable=true PWCUpdatable=true Query=bothcombined Renditions=read Unfiling=false VersionSpecificFiling=false Join=none	Yes	Provides extensions to the core CMIS specification to support "aspects" (mixins).
Apache Chemistry InMemory Server 0.3	ACL=none AllVersionsSearchable=false Changes=properties ContentStreamUpdatability=pwconly GetDescendants=true GetFolderTree=true Multifiling=true PWCSearchable=false PWCUpdatable=true Query=metadataonly Renditions=none Unfiling=true VersionSpecificFiling=false Join=none	Yes	Holds all data in memory targeted for testing and development, NOT for production use!
Day Software CRX 2.1+	Unknown	No
EMC Documentum 6.7	ACL=manage AllVersionsSearchable=true Changes=none ContentStreamUpdatability=anytime GetDescendants=true GetFolderTree=true Multifiling=true PWCSearchable=false PWCUpdatable=false Query=With Fulltext: bothcombined; Without Fulltext: metadataonly Renditions=read (not implemented for folders) Unfiling=false VersionSpecificFiling=false Join=inneronly	No
eXo Platform with xCMIS	ACL=manage AllVersionsSearchable=true ContentStreamUpdatability=anytime GetDescendants=true GetFolderTree=true Multifiling=true PWCSearchable=true PWCUpdatable=true Query=bothcombined Renditions=read Unfiling=true VersionSpecificFiling=false Join=none	Yes	The xCMIS project, initially contributed to the Open Source community by eXo, is an implementation of the full stack of Java-based CMIS services. xCMIS also include the client side frameworks for integrating content from different enterprise repositories according to the CMIS standard. xCMIS provides an out-of-the-box ability to expose an eXo JCR repository, and can be used in conjunction with CMIS gadgets using GWT based client side framework (coming soon to Open Source). Both can be easily integrated to the GateIn portal. xCMIS supports all the features specified in the CMIS core definition as well as both REST AtomPub and Web Services (SOAP/WSDL) protocol bindings. In addition to architecture supposed to provide an ability to a plug any third party content repository thanks to Storage Provider Interface layer. So, the idea of the project is to make as simple as possible joining Enterprise Content repositories making all of them CMIS-able and expose them to language-independent CMIS clients using the most convenient protocol. Read more about CMIS in real-life here . xCMIS project is Packaged as J2EE Web archive ( WAR ) as well as prepared "download and go" Tomcat bundle
Fabasoft	GetDescendants=true GetFolderTree=true Multifiling support=true ContentStreamUpdatability=anytime	No	Provides extensions to the core CMIS specification to support "aspects"
IBM FileNet 5.0	Unknown	No
HP Autonomy Interwoven Worksite 8.5	Unknown	No
IBM Connections Files 3.0	Unknown	No	Only documents are accessible via CMIS - other content types are inaccessible.
IBM LotusLive Files	Unknown	No
IBM Lotus Quickr 8.5 Lists	Unknown	No	Only data lists are accessible via CMIS - other content types are inaccessible.
ISIS Papyrus Objects	ACL=none AllVersionsSearchable=true Changes=none ContentStreamUpdatability=none GetDescendants=true GetFolderTree=true Multifiling=true PWCSearchable=false PWCUpdatable=false Query=none Renditions=none Unfiling=false VersionSpecificFiling=false Join=none	No	This module exposes objects defined in the Papyrus Repository. Document instances are mapped through MIME type into CMIS document type and subtypes.
KnowledgeTree 3.7+	Unknown	Yes
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010	Unknown	No	Requires installation of the Administration Toolkit
NCMIS	Unknown	Yes
Nuxeo DM 5.3+ and DAM 1.1+	ACL=none AllVersionsSearchable=true Changes=objectidsonly ContentStreamUpdatability=pwconly GetDescendants=true GetFolderTree=true Multifiling=false PWCSearchable=true PWCUpdatable=true Query=bothcombined Renditions=read Unfiling=false VersionSpecificFiling=false Join=innerandouter	Yes	Proxy documents and secondary content streams are not available through CMIS
O3spaces 3.2+	Unknown	No
OpenIMS	ContentStreamUpdatability=anytime GetDescendants=true GetFolderTree=true PWCSearchable=true	Yes	Fully integrated into OpenIMS DMS.
OpenText	* Private Working Copy=TRUE PWC updatable=TRUE PWC searchable=TRUE ACL=MANAGE ACL propagation=OBJECTONLY ACL supported=BOTH Changes=NONE ContentStreamUpdatability=ANYTIME GetDescendants=TRUE GetFolderTree=TRUE Query=BOTHCOMBINED All versions searchable=TRUE Join Capability=NONE Multifiling support=FALSE Unfiling support=FALSE Version specific filing=FALSE Renditions=NONE	No	With the release of ECM Suite 2010, OpenText provides support for CMIS. These capabilities are implemented through a CMIS Connector above Enterprise Library Services 10.2.0.
OpenWGA 5.2+	Unknown	No
Seapine Surround SCM 2011.1	Unknown	No
Sense/Net 6.0+	Unknown	Yes
TYPO3	Unknown	Yes

CMIS Clients

Software	Type	Technology	Open source	Notes
cmislib (part of Apache Chemistry)	Library	Python	Yes
CMIS PHPlib	Library	PHP	Yes
cmis-php-client (part of Apache Chemistry)	Library	PHP	Yes
CMIS Spaces	Application	Flex/ActionScript	Yes	Flex+AIR RIA Client with desktop drag/drop, Flex+Browser RIA Client, Portlet, ActionScript libraries (both AtomPub REST, SOAP)
DITALabs DITA CMIS Explorer	Application	PHP/ExtJS	Yes
DotCMIS (part of Apache Chemistry)	Library	.NET	Yes
Liferay 6.1	Application	Java	Yes	Synchronizes Liferay's document repository with CMIS servers.
OpenIMS	Application	PHP	Yes	Can synchronize document store with CMIS servers.
OpenCMIS (part of Apache Chemistry)	Library	Java	Yes	Includes some CMIS server functionality as well, but is not a fully fledged CMIS server by itself.
OpenWorkdesk (WeWebU Software AG)	Application	Java/ExtJS	Yes	An application suite (not just a CMIS browser!) for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) with an intuitive Web 2.0 front-end.
Papyrus CMIS Adapter	Application	Papyrus Objects	No	The module communicates with CMIS repositories directly through Papyrus Query Language (PQL).
Connect-CMIS (Connector in Pegasystems Inc. Pega BPM)	Application	Pega BPM	No	Allows for connectivity to any CMIS compliant server from Pega BPM.
Zero-Install Desktop Integration (ZIDI) (WeWebU Software AG)	Application	Java/ExtJS	No	ZIDI exposes parts of your ECM system as Direct Access Folders (DAF) that are shown as a network drive and can be therefore accessed directly by Windows Explorer or Microsoft Office.
CMIS Connector (Module of the SilverStripe CMS)	Application	PHP	Yes	The module can integrate external content via a CMIS connection into the SilverStripe CMS.
Drupal 6.x	Application	PHP	Yes	Can be configured as a CMIS browser.
WordPress	Application	PHP	Yes	Can be configured as a CMIS browser
Hippo CMS	Application	Java	Yes	Can be configured as a CMIS browser
libcmis	Library	C++	Yes
SAP Netweaver ABAP 7.03 / 7.31	API	ABAP	No	ECM Integration Layer supports CMIS repositories

Unknown

Can someone who knows more about these products please allocate each of these products into one, and only one, of the above lists (client or server)?

Software	Language	Open source	Notes
ActiveCMIS	Ruby	Yes
Atlassian Confluence + Crowd 3.5+/2.2.2+	Java	No
Constellio	Java	Yes
ECM Mobile	Java	Yes
enprovia Mobile Enabler 2.0	Java	No
Exstream Software	Java	No

See also

• WebDAV