based solution to fewer than one in three experience, we considered SharePoint an of the individuals who could have industrial-strength technology, and an enjoyed some productivity gains from it. excellent candidate for enterprise-scale This was hardly the best application of document management.” our significant investment.” Before deciding to move from Documentum to To make matter worse, maintenance of SharePoint Server 2010, however, Barron the Documentum-based and his colleagues wanted to address solution was costing the some key concerns. These concerns company dearly. This cost stemmed from included the way SharePoint Server 2010 a comprehensive contract for support, handles disaster recovery, its ability to service, training, and upgrades that to manage the rising volume of Tyson Foods had signed when it document images at Tyson Foods, and envisioned keeping the solution in place the product’s support for close for many years. integration with SAP. Tyson Foods uses SAP as its corporate enterprise resource Solution planning (ERP) solution and requires A turning point came for Wilson and her interfaces between that product’s colleagues after they tried in vain for accounting, human resources, export, more than six months to upgrade the and manufacturing components and image-management solution to a new image management. version of the EMC2 Documentum Platform. “At some point, the version of Expertise from Microsoft Technology Documentum on which we were running Center the solution would no longer be To address those concerns, later that supported,” explains, Mark Barron, Lead year Barron, Wilson, and two others from Programmer Analyst at Tyson Foods. Tyson Foods attended a three-day “Clearly, we needed to consider Architecture Design Session at a something different.” Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) in Dallas, Texas. They were accompanied by “Industrial-Strength Technology” consultants from Microsoft Gold Certified What Barron and his colleagues did Partner Hitachi Consulting, which had consider was different, but it was also worked with Tyson Foods for more than familiar: Microsoft SharePoint Server 12 years. 2010, the earlier versions of which the company had come to know and Because the SharePoint-based appreciate. “We had used Microsoft solution envisioned by SharePoint technologies since the Tyson Foods would be supported by a and had been using Microsoft repository based on Microsoft SQL Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Server, the team asked experts in that scale collaboration projects since 2008,” technology about how to design the Barron points out. “Based on that repository specifically to address
solution to fewer than one in three of the individuals who could have enjoyed some productivity gains from it. This was hardly the best application of our significant investment.” To make matter worse, maintenance of the Documentum-based solution was costing the company dearly. This cost stemmed from a comprehensive contract for support, service, training, and upgrades that Tyson Foods had signed when it envisioned keeping the solution in place for many years. Solution A turning point came for Wilson and her colleagues after they tried in vain for more than six months to upgrade the image-management solution to a new version of the EMC2 Documentum Platform. “At some point, the version of Documentum on which we were running the solution would no longer be supported,” explains, Mark Barron, Lead Programmer Analyst at Tyson Foods. “Clearly, we needed to consider something different.” “Industrial-Strength Technology” What Barron and his colleagues did consider was different, but it was also familiar: Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, the earlier versions of which the company had come to know and appreciate. “We had used Microsoft SharePoint technologies since the and had been using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for collaboration projects since 2008,” Barron points out. “Based on that experience, we considered SharePoint an industrial-strength technology, and an excellent candidate for enterprise-scale document management.” Before deciding to move from Documentum to SharePoint Server 2010, however, Barron and his colleagues wanted to address some key concerns. These concerns included the way SharePoint Server 2010 handles disaster recovery, its ability to scale to manage the rising volume of document images at Tyson Foods, and the product’s support for close integration with SAP. Tyson Foods uses SAP as its corporate enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution and requires interfaces between that product’s accounting, human resources, export, and manufacturing components and image management. Expertise from Microsoft Technology Center To address those concerns, later that year Barron, Wilson, and two others from Tyson Foods attended a three-day Architecture Design Session at a Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) in Dallas, Texas. They were accompanied by consultants from Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Hitachi Consulting, which had worked with Tyson Foods for more than 12 years. Because the SharePoint-based solution envisioned by Tyson Foods would be supported by a repository based on Microsoft SQL Server, the team asked experts in that technology about how to design the repository specifically to address based
Tyson_Foods_SharePoint2010_CS.docx