Sunday, June 15, 2008

Enterprise Portals

Portals are first and foremost a user interface paradigm. Portal user interfaces divide the browser into the following components:

1. Header - the top-most section of the browser page, contains the branding
for the portal
2. Portal pages - accessed via page tabs at the top of the browser page
3. Portlets - rectangular areas on the page, each one usually representing
an application or a task
4. Navigation - possibly a left navigation box, or a menu for navigating to
different pages
5. Footer - the bottom-most section of the browser page, contains
disclaimers,While not all of these components are necessary in a
product offering, the major components are as follows:

6. Presentation Services - the user interface rendering engine
7. Federation Fabric - the capability to deploy portals and portlets in a
distributed manner
8. Enterprise Integration - support for Web service and SOA technologies
9. Intelligent Administration - the ability to dynamically administer the
security and layout of a deployed portal
10. Development Framework - an application development environment that
provides consistency in the implementation of Web
applications across the enterprise
11. Content - the ability to manage documents and connect to external content
management systems
12. Search - providing a comprehensive search function across the entire
portal Collaboration - providing tools to enable users to
collaborate, like discussion forums and a group calendar

Enterprise portal products are therefore sizable pieces of software. They not only provide user interface capabilities, but they also provide major features in support of portal initiatives.

Enterprise portal vendors :

Vendors have long been supporting enterprise portal initiatives with portal product offerings. Most of the major vendors in the space have been delivering product for 8 to 10 years. While the enterprise portal market is not as mature as databases, Web servers, or Java application servers, it is a well-established product space. The list below contains a sampling of the major enterprise portal products:

BEA WebLogic Portal
BEA AquaLogic Interaction Portal
Oracle Portal
Microsoft Sharepoint Portal
IBM Websphere Portal
Vignette Portal
Sun Portal

As with any enterprise software product, a software selection process is necessary to decide which portal platform is right for your enterprise. Data sheets and white papers are available from each vendor to help with the decision process.