No lock-in
ContentGrid is a content service platform, built to manage, (legally) protect and AI-activate your valuable content. With open source encoded in its DNA, your app run is free to operate under the most liberal open source license: https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0. Your app is privately yours, but you have total freedom to operate. We believe lock-in is unacceptable, from a business and from a regulatory point of view. We dislike license keys, opaque pricing models, closed source and bad service.
Architecture : the console and the app
While the contentgrid console is an intricate part of our service, the generated content centric archive or application can be run on or ported to any platform of your liking.
Read on how we expel cloud lock-in, technology lock-in, platform lock-in, vendor lock-in and integrator lock-in. You would stay because our service is best in class.
No Cloud lock-in
- Although ContentGrid is a SaaS first offering, we support “bring your own cloud” architectures.
- SaaS Customers that want to move their run-time app to a public cloud (AWS, Azure) will be supported to do so, either in an EXIT or growth scenario.
- Customers with Bring Your Own Cloud can disconnect anytime from the central console without any impact to their production content service.
No Technology lock-in
- wij use as much as possible standards, and de facto open frameworks (notably Spring Framework and Spring Boot). Customers have access to the full and documented (and protected) API.
- open frameworks (Spring). All software required to run your app is released in the most liberal open source license, namely apache 2.0
- link to ContentGrid thunx: https://github.com/xenit-eu/thunx
- open source (ContentGrid runs on open source Postgres, and is a java application, generated by spring boot)
No platform lock-in
- Customer can run the content apps on their own cloud account. Customer that prefer the convenience, the AI features and the low cost of the SaaS model can stay on our full SaaS. Customers can request to port the content apps to their own cloud account at any moment.
- Documents and meta-data can be exported and this requires no request to Xenit. The apps are there and available. 24/7.
No Vendor lock-in
- The generated content applications are open source and offer full freedom to operate under the Apache License. The customer is free to share the sources with any party.
- The console software is placed under escrow. In case the company running the service would default, the code is available.
- ContentGrid training days are organised to ensure ongoing expertise with the customers and partners.
No integrator lock-in
- Contentgrid will benefit from a selected partner network. These partners are co-creators or service providers, and will be empowered to run, service and adapt contentgrid apps. Of course, the console helps everybody, customers, integrators, to evolve and adapt to new requirements.
- Keep your staff knowledgeable: Xenit offers a “free Grid days”, once a year, in which major customers can have one or more engineers or architects trained and educated on contentgrid.
Anybody can help. ContentGrid is built upon an technology stack that millions of developers in the world use. The generated code is simple, and relies in large part on Spring libraries, the largest open source eco system for application development in the world.
Exit strategy
When a customer wants to exit, we basically set 3 processes in motion:
- export of the content and meta-data. The customer can determine the format and facilitate the migration to another content store. All content can be exported, but ContentGrid makes it easy through a rich API
- the customer can receive a copy of the contentgrid console, with which the contentgrid app can be generated and maintained.
- the customer can move the service to their own cloud, and continue to run the service themselves, or via a partner, while they can plan a migration to another platform (or not).
- The customer takes over the monitoring platform and becomes owner (grafana cloud)
GO’s and No Go’s
- When running contentgrid on your own cloud (BYOC), you can cut all links to the console platform. Your content service will continue to run, unaffected. (Note that the monitoring platform, grafana cloud, does need an open connection to deliver reporting). However, this link is in no way controlled by Xenit.
- We don’t do license keys. We do service. You content service will run without any license key, no time bomb hidden - all run-time source code open. If you stop your subscription and payments, your SaaS service will end after 3 months (or as long as it takes to reasonable extract your content and meta-data). But your service will continue to run. Just without our updates.
- At any point, the customer can decide to leave contentgrid. The exit strategy plan, that will be ‘tested’ on a yearly basis, will export all your documents and meta-data. You have the necessary API’s (secured) to do so or have it done by another party.
Transparency
The best medicine against lock-in is transparency. That is what open source is about, in a sense. However, having insight in the code is not the same as understanding how it works and behaves in production circumstances. Moreover, these circumstances are unique to every customer installation.
How do we leverage this to decrease lock-in?
- The customer has full insight into the operations of the system, as well from a business point of view (actual work done) as from a technical point of view (system parameters, memory, CPU, disk, garbage collection).
- So, we share all things Observability with the customer (metrics, logs, traces)
- In case an exit is put into action, the observability platform and tooling can be taken over by the customer. Alongside the insight the customer (tech team) has built into the inner operations of contentgrid, it also creates continuity.
- The observability tooling adheres to standards such as openTelemetry, and is integrated into common and known tooling from Grafana Labs (as of 2024).
- The evolution of pricing is predictable and open.
Discover how it works
In today's digital era, the importance of effectively managing, retrieving, and storing information cannot be overstated. Whether you are a business looking to optimize your workflows, a team trying to streamline content management, or an individual striving for efficient document control, ContentGrid is designed with you in mind.
Discover how ContentGrid leverages cutting-edge technology to provide a seamless and intuitive content management experience.
