P8 Core Components

FileNet P8 core components: 1. Content Engine (CE) 2. Application Engine (AE) and 3. Process Engine (PE)

Content Engine
Content Engine is designed to handle the heavy demands of a large enterprise. It is capable of managing enterprise-wide workflow objects, custom objects, and documents by offering powerful and easy-to-use administration tools. Using these tools, an administrator can create and manage the classes, properties, storage, and metadata that form the foundation of an Enterprise Content Management system.

Key architectural aspects include: Object-oriented, extensible metadata model – Enables Content Engine to provide complex and
flexible data representation; and a rich event framework provides the means to trigger an action in
response to activities performed against Content Engine objects.
 Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) – Provide an extensible platform for development
and cross-repository queries, and lets administrators configure systems programmatically. A Java
API provides a rich set of Java classes which map to object store objects, such as Document,
Folder, or Property Description; a Web Service API allows customers to author applications in a
platform and language independent manner by exposing the object model in a small number of
generic methods suitable for deployment in a Web environment; a .NET API (which is functionally
equivalent to the Java API) provides for development of applications using the .NET platform.
 J2EE-compliant application server – Offers reliability, scalability, and high availability features, as well as support for a wide range of operating system platforms, application servers, and
database technologies.
 Scalable – Can be deployed to suit the demands of the enterprise. As the enterprise's needs
change, you can reconfigure the system by replacing, adding, or removing servers or applications
without bringing the system down. You can add members to Web server farms and Content Engine
server farms at any time.
 Unicode-based – Unicode is a universal character encoding standard that enables Content Engine
to be targeted to multiple platforms, languages, and countries without re-engineering, and it allows
data to be transported through many different systems without corruption.

Process EngineProcess Engine provides software services for managing all aspects of business processes (also called workflows), such as process execution, process routing, rules management, process simulation and modeling, and workflow analysis. Process Engine components allow you to create, modify, and manage workflows implemented by applications, enterprise users, or external users (such as partners and customers).

The preceding diagram includes the following services and management components:
• Process Service – The core of the business process management system. It provides workflow
services on behalf of Process Engine.
• E-mail Notification – Enables automatic transmission of e-mail to users when specified processrelated events occur; e-mail notification can also be used to track workflows.
• Rules Connectivity Framework – Provides a framework for rules integration. A process designer or
business analyst creates business rules using rules software acquired from another vendor and
associates the rules with the steps of a workflow. When a running workflow encounters a rule, Process
Engine sends a request to the Rules Listener to execute a rule set. Rules Listener executes the rules
in the rule set and returns the results to Process Engine. The rules engine provider must implement a
specific API in order to integrate with Process Engine.
• Process Task Manager – Provides administrative tools for configuring and managing process-related
services on the Process Engine server.
• Process Analyzer – Provides analysis capabilities to determine cycle times, find bottlenecks, and
generate reports and charts to analyze the processes deployed in the Process Engine system.
• Process Simulator – Allows you to simulate processes or perform “what-if” scenarios with
hypothetical or historical data.
Workflow database – Contains Process Engine configuration information as well as running
instances of workflows.
• Component Integrator – Provides an extensible integration framework that allows you to easily
create connectors. Java and JMS adaptors are ready for you to use without modification.
• Process Web Services – Provides a Web services API to Process Engine.
• Workflow auto-launch – Event-driven component that launches workflows in the Process Engine
system. You can configure this component to launch a specific workflow in response to specific
events. For example, filing a document in a folder might launch a review process in the Process
Engine system.
• Directory Services – Directory service functionality is accessed through the Content Engine server.
Content Engine supports several LDAP providers and single-sign-on (SSO) functionality. This passthrough approach simplifies directory services configuration by centralizing it for both Content Engine and Process Engine.

Application EngineApplication Engine is the FileNet P8 component that hosts the Workplace Web application, Workplace java applets, and application development tools. It is the presentation layer for both process and content. Application Engine protects user credentials passed between Workplace and Content Engine and, if configured, provides SSL security.

The services and applications included in Application Engine are:
• Workplace – An end-user Web application that provides access to the document management
capabilities and is tightly integrated with the business process management capabilities of FileNet P8.Workplace also supports extended FileNet P8 capabilities such as forms management, records
management, and portals.

Workplace XTWorkplace XT is an optional FileNet P8 component (similar to Application Engine) that hosts the Workplace XT Web application, providing access to the process and content functionality of FileNet P8. You can install Workplace XT in addition to or in place of Application Engine. Workplace XT protects user credentials passed between Workplace XT and Content Engine and, if configured, provides SSL security.

Rendition EngineRendition Engine converts documents from a variety of formats, such as those produced by Office programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) to PDF and HTML formats. Multiple Rendition Engines can be configured to support large numbers of conversion requests.

An application requests that a document be published by submitting a publish request through one of the FileNet P8 APIs. A publish request might simply create a copy of the document in a new folder, with new security attributes, or it might also transform the document content to another format (HTML or PDF). The publish request is queued in the Content Engine server. The publishing background task dequeues the publish request and calls the appropriate publishing event handler. If a format conversion is a part of the publish request, then the handler sends the document to the Rendition Engine server to perform the necessary transformation.