Content Mangager Migration

Project Goal

A future task to undertake is the migration of the existing eNote-archiv into a digital library, namely the IBM Content Manager. Therefore, permission for accessing and storing must be developed. In the first phase, a web presentation based on the data in the content manager shall be established in order to allow displaying meta data and compressed images. Furthermore, the expert shall be able to access the meta data as well as the image with the possibility to zoom.

Migration to Content Manager

The migration to a content manager was the work of a database research group master thesis. This thesis divided the migration into two steps that are also displayed in the diagram on the right.

• Migration of the data structure: In case the conceptional data model is not included in archive documentation, it has to be created by reverse engineering of the existing data. Afterwards, the existing model is converted into an ICM data model (IBM Content Manager data model). The exact algorithm can be reviewed in the master thesis of Sebastian Dolke (only in German).
• Data migration:
  • Data tranfer: A Java application will read the content by connecting via JDBC and transfer the data by using an IIC-Connector to the content manager. Document item types are used for storing the documents while mapping the data model. Each database table will map to an item type managing by a XML file and an item will be created for each row of a table.
  • Reconstruction of dependencies: After transferring all data from the database to the content manager, the reconstruction of all data dependencies is necessary. "Primary key" and "Foreign key" will be represented by pid's of an item in the content manager.

Migration of the UDF

Afterwards, a migration of the function for distance calculation needs to be migrated into the library server of the IBM Content Manager as well. The UDF was integrated into the library server database. The UDF uses database tables in order to get necessary data for distance calculation. This is not possible anymore since the database tables were converted by the migration. Therefore, all SQL calls in the UDF were transformed into the corresponding query language of the IBM Content Manager.

Architecture

The following graphic illustrates the system architecture as well as the migration steps and data access. The user accesses the eNoteHistory project via specific websites, which were created as Java Servlets that include database queries. Using a special servlet for administratitive use, one can choose the data pool, which the system (database or digital library) will query. The queries required by the servlets are defined in an abstract backend interface whose concrete implementations are located in the APIs of the corresponding systems.

The library server of the University of Rostock provides a digital library about which you can find more information under Digitale Bibliothek Uni Rostock. Users who want to access the digital library will be forwarded to the MyCoRe interface which is a general interface for digital libraries. The MyCoRe interface still needs to be adjusted in order to allow access to the eNote archive in the content manager.

MyCoRe Project

The University of Rostock participates in the MyCoRe project, whose aim is to develop a uniform infrastructure of a digital library. MyCoRe is an open source project (GNU General Public License) for developing a system for digital libraries and archive solutions. Several universities are working together on this project in order to create a general software core for this type of application. This software core can be adjusted or extended depending on one's needs. The basis of the application is Java libraries, XML techniques and different database backends, as well as IBM DB2 and IBM Content Manager, MySQL and XML databases. Further information about the MyCoRe project can be found at the MyCoRe-Homepage.