Content Management Taken to New Levels

E-business software solutions provider RavenPack AG, located in Munich, Germany, has developed a comprehensive software solution for content management that includes security and transactional features, as well as data archiving capabilities. The modular RavenSpace system lets users add functionality as their needs grow - and is designed to allow a high degree of customization for various business types.

In an interview with Streamingmedia.com, RavenPack CEO Doris Albiez described the features and philosophies behind RavenSpace, and how it can be implemented to a content provider's advantage.

Q: RavenPack's approach to content management is intended to offer security, fast access, and a wealth of transactional features. What is the driving force behind the RavenSpace product, and what are its key capabilities?

A: To be able to compete, a distributed communication and transaction environment becomes vital for successful commerce. On the other hand, communication and exchange of data and information are almost always very specific for any particular company, constituting basic and specialized business processes. What is required is a software solution that is flexible to be adapted to specific needs, secure to protect any critical data, modular to be employed in distributed environments, reliable at any transaction, fast in every aspect, and easy to handle.

The main idea is to treat content in a much broader way than it usually is nowadays - to allow more parameters, finer granularity. This makes it possible to do any transaction in a much more precise and refined way.

RavenSpace is not only a plain business server, nor is it only a smart Web server, or another single business application. It can be all of those things, all in one system. It combines the entire broad collection of these solutions on a common enterprise platform — critical breaks at the interfaces of heterogeneous software solutions are gone. Nevertheless, due to its modular setup, RavenSpace can easily be adapted to individual needs, resulting in a customized solution - one step at a time, or all at once.

Q: What is RavenSpace's approach to data modeling that enables this level of granularity?

A: RavenPack sees data from a groundbreaking new perspective. First, data has been recognized to be dynamic, to be subject to constant changes of perception. RavenPack applies the theory of gravity to the world of bits and bytes. We wanted our computers to handle data and information in the way our brains do it, and to treat data intuitively, constantly shifting the focus and re-evaluating importance, weight and gravity of any data atom transacted.

Q: Can you illustrate how this approach could change content management, say for an Internet radio station or a video-on-demand system?

A: An Internet radio station would not only be able to manage tracks on the basis of the performer of a play, or the songwriter, or the style of music, but also in respect to psychological impact of a play, suitability for listeners (say, depending on their education level) or time of day, country of the listener, and many others.

Q: A challenge for content providers is very often the handling of large archives, like video files. How does RavenPack meet this need?

A: The RavenPack Data Model makes it possible to store large archives with precise classification and categorization of their contents so they can be managed more easily. With all the principles of its sophisticated content management, RavenSpace can also be seen as user-friendly archiving system that provides selective retrieval of any particular data. Since all data that is to be stored is broken down to units that can be parameterized individually, large archives actually become manageable. Besides having an optimally searchable archive, users of RavenSpace also are able to create for each user a personalized view that is always up-to-date and tailored towards the user's preferences.

Q: A key to establishing a trustworthy online business is security. How does RavenSpace address security issues?

A: Since the new content data model also makes it possible to nail down security aspects for any atomic data unit, access security is also improved significantly. Security settings can be configured themselves to a variety of individual levels.

RavenSpace is at the moment the only system worldwide that guarantees absolute security. This security shows an external and an internal aspect. Despite continuous availability of network connections, no one can penetrate the system from outside, since he will not be able to find any components to communicate with internally. While requests and messages to the system are being processed, the connection to the user's browser is held and the session will be transferred into a standby mode in a neutral space. The user's browser will receive a mirror connection, which is nothing but a kind of queue in a neutral zone. There is no real communication at this stage. For that reason there is no possibility whatsoever of any information being read out or of any penetration into the system.

As for internal security, the components of the RavenSpace system include communication interfaces for mutual exchange of data. All components in both subsystems offer only one interface to other subsidiary components, either for receiving or for transmitting data. None of the components offers both an import and export interface to any other component.

Only the negligent handling of logon credentials by the registered users of the RavenSpace system, or the delivered, willful undoing of database security features by the trusted administrative operator from inside could create a possible security issue.

Q: Can RavenSpace be integrated into existing Web environments, and is it possible to incorporate available e-business solutions?

A: The first issue is related to the Web Operating System (the Web interface of RavenSpace). RavenSpace and the Web Operating System can be installed on top of any Web infrastructure and Web server as long as a Java Servlet Engine acts as an adapter to the system. The interface RavenSpace offers to the Web can be set on top of existing products without many changes since it is a clearly defined access gate, and all functionality is realized within that gate.

To realize the benefits of the data model and the according transaction logic, existing data must be converted to and classified by the RavenPack serial number-enhanced data model and stored in the RavenSpace native database. In order to make the very best of dynamic creation of Web pages, existing Web sites must be adopted to the RavenSpace data model.

This is because the RavenPack Data Model is completely new; consequently, business data must be transferred to RavenSpace content databases to draw maximum benefit of the data model. Nevertheless, RavenSpace will feature a tool that promotes automatic or semi-automatic import of existing data into the new databases and data model.