Alfresco Cloud is not Alfresco

[flefoll]

Ok,
Alfresco Cloud is only in Beta, my comments are therefore conditionals,
but I believe Alfresco company knows the weakness of their own product,
The pointed limitations are unfortunately based on a real knowledge of their own product…

1) Alfresco Cloud is not alfresco, it's "Share only".
Do not expect putting some custom webscript, some scripted action or some custom RSS template…

2) Going a little bit further than simple flat document management ?
Not at all, replication, WCM/Web Quick start or media/social export are not available…

3) Google Doc integration ?
I said no…

4) Records management ?
If they decides to put it available, it's well hidden until now…

5) CMIS, SOAP or REST API ?
No, you will not use Alfresco Cloud to feed or to be feed by anything else…

6) Share Surf extension into your own tenancy (sorry, “network” in Alfresco Cloud naming) ?
No, be happy with default client's interface, do not extend or override anything…

I wasn't expecting unrealistic possibilities, like deploying your own custom transformer,
or having the possibility to use my local Share webapp (which should have been possible with an other design, and would have been much more interesting !).
And I really understand why they done these limitations.

Nevertheless, to me, it's exactly as officially claiming their real product is definitively not adapted in its rich features to massive deployment.
No ?

Regards,

Francois

[mikeh]

Firstly, thank you for taking the time signing-up and trying the current Alfresco Cloud offering.

Alfresco Cloud is only in Beta…

Mostly this.

Our plans for cloud are huge. The on-premise Share product is a great starting point, but we felt it much too complicated for the "Box" and "Dropbox" type of customers we'd like to attract. Hence certain features have been disabled for now.

It might be better if you re-worded your criticisms in a somewhat more constructive way and posted them to the GetSatisfaction.com site specifically for Alfresco Cloud feedback.

Thanks,
Mike

[flefoll]

Hi,

As you write it down, Alfresco Cloud is a nice "Dropbox" equivalent (even if it's provided today without ftp/webdav access…),
I was expecting an "Alfresco" equivalent software, we are just not speaking about the same product.

Alfresco Cloud is not Alfresco,
A simple suggestion if you do not want create frustration for who knows your product, rename it as "Alfresco Share Cloud".

Regards.

[samudaya]

Hi all,

I also tried Alfresco Cloud version. I would like to have at-least Alfresco Explore with it.

Thanks
SAMU

[mrogers]

I don't think that's ever going to happen.  

Why do you want Alfresco Explorer in the cloud?

[jamesfletcher]

Hi all,

I also tried Alfresco Cloud version. I would like to have at-least Alfresco Explore with it.

Thanks
SAMU

SAMU,

I guess one thing here is that Alfresco in the cloud can't be customized. Most of the features that are in Alfresco Explore have gone into Share, which is the interface which is used on the cloud platform.

As 'mrogers' says above it would be useful to know what you want to achieve…

[jamesfletcher]

Ok,
Alfresco Cloud is only in Beta, my comments are therefore conditionals,
but I believe Alfresco company knows the weakness of their own product,
The pointed limitations are unfortunately based on a real knowledge of their own product…

1) Alfresco Cloud is not alfresco, it's "Share only".
Do not expect putting some custom webscript, some scripted action or some custom RSS template…

2) Going a little bit further than simple flat document management ?
Not at all, replication, WCM/Web Quick start or media/social export are not available…

3) Google Doc integration ?
I said no…

4) Records management ?
If they decides to put it available, it's well hidden until now…

5) CMIS, SOAP or REST API ?
No, you will not use Alfresco Cloud to feed or to be feed by anything else…

6) Share Surf extension into your own tenancy (sorry, “network” in Alfresco Cloud naming) ?
No, be happy with default client's interface, do not extend or override anything…

I wasn't expecting unrealistic possibilities, like deploying your own custom transformer,
or having the possibility to use my local Share webapp (which should have been possible with an other design, and would have been much more interesting !).
And I really understand why they done these limitations.

Nevertheless, to me, it's exactly as officially claiming their real product is definitively not adapted in its rich features to massive deployment.
No ?

Regards,

Francois

Francois,

Thanks for your feedback it really is valuable in making Alfresco in the cloud a better product. We position Alfresco in the cloud as the same platform just multi-tenant and hosted by us in our data center. We have a very aggressive roadmap http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/2012_Product_Roadmap#Alfresco_in_the_Cloud over the next few months to get some of those features you list into the platform.

I wonder, were you looking to replace your on-premise platform to Alfresco in the cloud?

Let me know if I can help at all…

Cheers, James.

[mbrumley]

To some degree I have to echo the OP's sentiments.

I've spent most of the last two days researching this system, the sole survivor of my original top 10 list of ECM candidates. In that time I've become increasingly unsure of whether much of what I liked about the system was actually available in the cloud. Several times I stopped what I was doing to launch "Share vs. Cloud" searches, to no avail.

Somehow, you seem to have overlooked the possibility that someone who comes across your website and launches a cloud-based demo might take for granted that, in the absence of any clear evidence to the contrary, everything he sees is available in the cloud. In fact, though it seems obvious now, I didn't even realize there *were* distinct versions & capability sets until today.

In two hours I have to make a presentation to an IT team using the 32-page document I have been crafting. I'm now going to have to preface that presentation with "Most of the really cool stuff I'm about to show you we can't actually have yet, since we're specifically looking for a cloud version and theirs is actually quite limited." Try to imagine the mood I'm in right now.

One of my co-workers has his own presentation based on his pick, Box.com. I don't think their system has anywhere near the long-term potential that yours does, both in the market and for our company. I also don't think that's going to matter.

If, in the vast wealth of documentation I've been perusing the last two days, there exists a clear delineation between the two systems and their respective features and capabilities (and, in particular, the degree to which they can be integrated, extended, and customized), perhaps you could point it out to me. If not, you might want to consider creating one.

Thanks,
Mike

[t_sato]

Hi,

As you write it down, Alfresco Cloud is a nice "Dropbox" equivalent (even if it's provided today without ftp/webdav access…),
I was expecting an "Alfresco" equivalent software, we are just not speaking about the same product.

I am new to Alfresco, only a month. The cloud offering is very attractive for non-core-ECM users like me.

In fact, as it is mentioned in the official document, "Shared Drive" feature is overlooked. It gave me a new experience when I tried on my server. I am really looking forward to it on the cloud.

I am sure I will learn the depth of content management that Alfresco can offer. But it wouldn't happen if I had not tried Alfresco on the cloud.

[fionnuala]

If, in the vast wealth of documentation I've been perusing the last two days, there exists a clear delineation between the two systems and their respective features and capabilities (and, in particular, the degree to which they can be integrated, extended, and customized), perhaps you could point it out to me. If not, you might want to consider creating one.

Thanks,
Mike

I would echo this request, it's not clear what can be expected in cloud. I don't expect everything to be available, especially not immediately, but I don't understand why there isn't a simple comparison table, that would have saved hours of perplexity. Even a statement on the Cloud Documentation site that the documentation there describes the full functionality would have helped, it was so limited in comparison to all the great things I'd heard about Alfresco that I thought it must just be an intro.