Whats a CMS system?

A content management system (CMS) is an integral part of web designing process. It is a platform through which the users can update and modify the website contents using specific software. It helps in centrally administered site maintenance through publishing, editing or modifications of the web page.

CMS has some important features, the highlight being the ability of sharing and contribution of data to a single page by a large group of people. It also allows monitoring and control of the data to be published, with continuous validity and compliance checks. Data, in CMS terminology, can refer to any content-text, audio, video, phone numbers, scientific data, etc. The centrally located CMS gives an essential advantage of version control, where the data is automatically updated to its newer version. Some popular CMS software include Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, DotNetNuke, etc. Content management is performed in three ways.

The first form is the Enterprise Content Management system (ECM), mainly used by commercial organizations. Here, the data related to the organization, be it documents, files, contacts, etc. is managed by this system. This is made possible by preventing bottlenecks, streamlining of access and maintenance of security and integrity of the system. It uses five specific technologies, namely capture, manage, storage, preserve and deliver. Capture incorporates data conversion from the paper to its electronic equivalent through scanning. The Manage component links the other components of the system, which have the option of being used individually or in combination. Storage is, obviously, concerned with saving data for short term or long term purposes into repositories, and is different from Preserve, which involves back up and essentially long term storage of unchanging data. Lastly, the Deliver component displays the data which is captured, stored, managed and preserved by the ECM.

Component Content Management system performs the function of storing and managing the content at sub-document level, from where it can be frequently reused. It includes tasks such as maintenance of security, management of objects and servers and maintaining reports from continuous audits. The CCM stores each component (part of data) only once, ensuring a single source of content. The advantages of this system entail increased accuracy and consistency, reduced delivery and maintenance as well as translational costs.

The third form of CMS is the Web Content Management system, which is used for creation, management and storage of content to be uploaded on web pages. The content can include pictures, graphics, audio, video, and other user-interactive applications. It has the ability to personalize the web content depending on user’s requirements, such as regional language selection, indexing and can also perform runtime selection and assembly of the content.

Mark