Federated records management is the ability to establish, execute, and enforce a common records policy across distributed, heterogeneous records repositories, using a set of standards that provide interoperability for functions such as search, collection, identity and access management, retention and disposition, and other functions throughout the life cycle of a record. Within the enterprise, an open source federated records management environment might include:
- Single or multiple policy engines using common taxonomy across distributed information repositories
- Common identity and access methods across distributed information repositories
- Open source enterprise content management repositories, including Alfresco, Nuxeo, or Plone
- Standards for content management interoperability, including OASIS/CMIS
- Search and indexing library, such as Lucene
Put another way, federated records management is the process of managing content in place through federated control and remote policy management. In most cases, a federated records management strategy works best if content sources are disparate, large, and scalable, and have a good information governance architecture, with proper security and control including audit trail and where the centralized model is unsustainable or too risky.
Multiple models for federation exist in both the end-user and vendor communities. For example:
- a records-based model, where the enterprise maintains the policies and systems to differentiate between information and records, and seeks simply to federate policy and access across pre-established records management systems;
- an information or data-repository model, where a large set of disparate information and data repositories exist, requiring a federation strategy to support records declaration, classification, and indexing.
Action Item: As organizations look to strengthen corporate and information governance capabilities across the enterprise while leveraging existing infrastructure and opportunities of the cloud, CIOs will seek out federated solutions for records and information management, as federation concepts extend beyond identity and storage. The right amount of standardization will make federation work (e.g., definitions, taxonomy, service descriptions and protocols), but too much will impede competitive offerings on the edge.
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