Aggregation and Presentation

Portal Server aggregates and presents content to the end user. The Desktop is the interface that the end user accesses to view the content for a portal site.

The Desktop organizes content into channels. Channels can display content that is provided in many formats, such as:

• XML (extensible markup language)

• JavaServer Pages^TM (JSP^TM) specification

• RSS (really simple syndication)

• HTML (hypertext markup language)

Portal Server implements a number of standards to simplify delivering content to the Desktop. These standards include the following:

• The Java Specification Request (JSR) 168 standard, which allows portlets to run in multiple portal environments. Integrating custom applications is not necessary when the JSR 168 specification is used.

• The J2EE^TM Connector Architecture (JCA), which allows application servers to access any data sources for which a resource application has been written.

• Web services for remote portlets (WSRP) 1.0 standard, a web services protocol for integrating content and interactive web applications from remote sources.

For more information about the Desktop, see Chapter 2, Understanding the Standard Desktop.