How does the future look with Alfresco?

This book is based on Alfresco Enterprise 4.1.2. It is an update on the previous book which was on the Alfresco 3.0 release. The Alfresco system has evolved towards a state-of-the-art, one point solution to the ECM needs.

Alfresco is geared towards an enterprise content platform that you can use in the cloud or behind your firewall. Alfresco is built for the portability of the tablet and the power of the cloud.

There has been so much interest from international organizations, governments, and multi-national corporations that translation seems a natural extension of the Alfresco model.

Alfresco has weaved itself into a number of other products. Products such as Quark, Acrobat.com, CAStor, and Adobe LiveCycle are just a few to mention who have incorporated the ECM into their product in some way.

Better support options

Alfresco comes with multiple support options. Firstly, it is supported by the company Alfresco, which gives users direct access to Alfresco's engineering team and most recent bug fixes.

At any given point in time, the following three support alternatives exist for Alfresco open source software:

• In-house development support: As the source code is open source, you can train your developers in-house to support your application built using Alfresco.
• Community support: Alfresco already has a big community world wide. With a growing community, you can always get help through Alfresco community forums, though the quality of support can vary.
• Alfresco enterprise network support: Alfresco Inc. provides the highest quality option for production and development support. This support is provided to the company's customers using the Enterprise product. It includes direct access to the engineers who write the Alfresco code, the up-to-date bug fixes, configuration assistance, and a range of other services.

Free upgrades

For every new release, you will get free upgraded software. You might have to take care of your specific customization to upgrade to the later version of the software. It is important to follow best practices while implementing Alfresco, so that upgrades are easier and less expensive to handle.