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. _______________________________________________ sunmanagers mailing list sunmanagers@sunmanagers.org http://www.sunmanagers.org/mailman/listinfo/sunmanagersReceived on Fri Mar 4 11:54:10 2005
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