The iManage Records Manager Data Loader is a tool that we use extensively in converting legacy records systems to iRM. There are some great features about the tool and some short comings we learn about with every conversion. The biggest issue with Data Loader is that it’s slow. You feed it an XML file to process and the application does a lot of validation before and during the processing of that file. It is very SQL intensive.
We are currently working with iRM 5.2, and I know in later versions they’ve increased the OS compatibility. With this version, we are limited to Windows Server 2003 (32-bit) and Microsoft SQL Server 2005. We are constrained by 4 Mb of RAM and a single threaded process. We’ve been able to increase performance by stripping down and dedicating one of our VM Host servers for the conversion, working with the data in-house and delivering a completed database back to the client.
Until Autonomy improves the tool, the only solution to increase performance is to throw bigger hardware at it. The faster the processors and the faster the disks you have on the server, the better you’ll do. We’ve been able to run two instances of the Data Loader on one server, and that helps. But, if you try and run three you run into that database locking issue and nothing really runs.