One of the questions we often get asked is
the differences between Alfresco One
and the Alfresco Community edition. In
this video
I'll compare the two versions and I'll
highlight some of the reasons why
companies choose to use Alfresco One.
So let's start off by looking at
Hybrid ECM.
Included in the Alfresco One
subscription
is a secure network in the cloud. Users
can use Alfresco installed on premise
to share and collaborate and work on files
with other team members within the
organization. But Hybrid ECM
allows them to synchronize that content
out to a cloud installation.
It's a private, secure network. Now
I can invite
business partners, customers,
prospects,
consultants, different agencies, whoever I'm working with
to join my network in the cloud. They can
modify the content there.
Changes will synchronize back on premise.
If I change the content
on-premise, those changes will synchronize
back into the cloud.
The Alfresco One subscription includes all of
this.
Another area difference
is around scalability and reliability. With an Alfresco One
enterprise subscription, companies can
choose to deploy Alfresco to multiple
nodes
or multiple CPU's in a cluster. This allows Alfresco to scale to support
many hundreds, thousands, or tens of
thousands of users.
If I have another department that wants to come
on
I just add another CPU and I've got a
performance that they need.
It also provides reliability
If one of those nodes or CPU's in a
cluster should go down
user could continue because the other
nodes will just take over the load.
Administration
of the Alfresco servers is easier with the Alfresco One than it is
with the Community Edition.
Alfresco One comes with simple web-based
administration tools,
allowing admin users to log in and
configure different components on the
Alfresco server.
These components can be configured
on the fly. I can stop a subsystem,
reconfigure it and restart it without having
to take down the Alfresco servers.
I can also validate settings,
whether it's adding another node to a
cluster, or whether I'm
adding in an authentication server. Adding my LDAP system to Alfresco.
I can set the settings, validate that
they work
without having to go down and edit XML
files and then restart the server to check
it works.
We also provide JMX monitoring.
This allows companies to monitor their
servers,
checking the resources they're using and
identifying problems because before they
become a real issue.
There is also different at the platform layer.
Alfresco Community Edition is designed
to work
on an open source stack. So open source
operating systems, open source databases,
and open source app servers. Whereas Alfresco One is designed to work on both an
open source stack,
plus commercial software.
So for example if I wanted to use
Oracle as my database layer,
then I really need to be looking at Alfresco One. Alfresco One comes with
the range of enterprise integrations.
There's a more scalable desktop sync
solution.
This allows end users to synchronize
content between their laptops and Alfresco.
We have a Microsoft Outlook integration,
allowing users to access Alfresco from
within sight Outlook.
I can upload and download documents
directly from my Outlook client. We have
a transformation server
that provides a better quality transformation
of Microsoft Office files. Of course
Alfresco integrates with a range of
other line of business applications,
things like salesforce, SAP, etc. For
companies that want to store
Alfresco content on content addressable
storage,
i.e. Centera Systems from EMC, in this
ability to
link in CAS storage at the file level.
Alfresco One is a fully supported
product.
It comes with this commercial support
agreement and
customers can choose a 9-5 or 24 x 7
SLA,
depending on their requirements. There are
additional support options.
Customers can choose a term, the
Technical Account Manager,
or even onsite support engineers.
Alfresco One goes through an extensive
QA process.
The Community Edition is tested but
its automated testing on a single stack.
Alfresco One goes through a much stricter
QA process and is tested on a range of
different configurations.
Customers get future upgrades bug fixes
and service packs.
They get patches, occasionally we'll back port
a fix should a customer have a problem,
and they can't upgrade to the current version.
We provide customers with cut proactive
alerts and also access to our knowledge
base.
And there is a Certified Partner Network,
partners that can help develop & deploy
Alfresco to make sure that you're
successful.
As can be seen, there are some major
differences between Alfresco One
and the Community Edition. Alfresco
One is designed as a business-critical
ECM platform. It provides both the
scalability & reliability you need to
manage your content.
And it's an open solution built on a
modern
technology that allows you to integrate
Alfresco with other line of business
applications.
The Community Edition
is really aimed at the developer
community, is
aimed at people that are happy supporting
themselves on possibly using Alfresco
for non mission critical applications.
It's a perfect tool to try before you buy.
Download Community Edition, prove that it
does what we say it does but
if you are building a mission-critical
application,
then think of the additional benefits you're
going to get from moving to an Alfresco One platform.
