Motiv Solutions

The Why and the What

The people at Motiv have been involved with enterprise business software, data solutions, and CMSes for decades. We have seen many attempts to create a solution that all systems can speak. The problem is the solutions are either language specific, get buried by larger vendors who are less interested in playing nice with others, or just are not thought out enough to get rolling.

While there are great solutions for pulling Content like GraphQL what MotivLabs realized it needed in addition to GraphQL was an agnostic way to store any data or content so it could later be delivered or used in any system.

We came away with what we call Motation, Motiv Notation. We started with the JSON 8 specification as JSON is currently the most used and most flexible way of moving serialized data and content and is supported by all programming languages. Of course the JSON 8 specification is focused on format and basic typing so we needed to extend it to expand the required and narrow the focus for content. The idea is that Motation would have everything you need to create the content in another system or the same system it came from which includes an understanding of the content’s definition, types, relationships, dependencies, and values.

USE CASES

Interoperability Between Versions of the Same Content Repository (CMS)

At Motiv we have found that many systems struggle to move content between different environments even when the versions match. Moving content between environments when the versions of the software, CMS, or Content Repository do not match is even more difficult. This where Motation shines. Motation is designed to allow a format for content to be in a way that even if a newer version of your Content Repository changed its datamodel or APIs or format you can transform or translate into and out of Motation allowing for interoperability between the systems.

Upgrades

MotivLabs have taken on countless upgrades of software, Content Repositories, and CMSes. Upgrades are either really easy or really hard. Unfortunately what many businesses learn is while they can be easy it is rarely the case. We have all seen the upgrade project that takes 2 years to complete and has many people involved. With the TCO (Total Cost) going through the roof. While Motation is not a magic wand for upgrades it can provide a way of formatting and moving content between the new system when a direct upgrade of the data is either not desired or just too hard to achieve.

Using Motation as a format to move content between systems during an upgrade also provides a repeatable and more modern way of handling the upgrade. The upgrade could be scripted to roll out across multiple environments and servers one at a time or even using a blue/green strategy.

Interoperability Between Content Repositories (CMSes)

Most companies have different systems which store content. Whether this is because of a legacy system or business requirements there is a need to integrate content between different systems across a company and business. This is where Motation spec can come in and assist in helping systems which cannot speak to each have a common bond between them.