IBM Content Navigator architecture overview
IBM Content Navigator is a web client that can connect to multiple IBM Content Manager Enterprise Edition, IBM Content Manager OnDemand, and IBM FileNet® P8 repositories.
- Access one or more repositories
- Access one or more types of content management servers
The following diagram shows how documents on the content server are delivered to a web browser on a user's workstation through the connectors that are installed on the IBM Content Navigator web application server.

- Content Manager connector, which is used to communicate with your IBM Content Manager Enterprise Edition repositories
- Content Engine client connector files, which are used to communicate with your IBM FileNet P8 repositories
- Process Engine client connector files, which are used to communicate with your IBM FileNet Process Engine server if you use IBM FileNet P8 workflows
If you want to use IBM Content Navigator with IBM Content Manager OnDemand repositories, you must install the Content Manager OnDemand connector, ODWEK.
If you want to use IBM Content Navigator with OASIS Content Management Interoperability Services repositories, you do not need to install any connectors. You must configure the connections to your OASIS Content Management Interoperability Services repositories from the IBM Content Navigator administration tool.
- If you configure IBM Content Navigator to use the IBM Watson™ Watson Content Analytics plug-in, IBM Content Navigator uses the plug-in to communicate with IBM Watson Content Analytics.
- If you configure IBM Content Navigator to use an external data services plug-in, IBM Content Navigator uses the plug-in to communicate with the external data source.

The underlying architecture of IBM Content Navigator is explained in more detail in IBM Content Navigator development architecture.