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Oracle® Application Server 10g Concepts
10g (9.0.4) Part No. B10375-01 |
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Oracle® Application Server 10g Concepts
10g (9.0.4) Part No. B10375-01 |
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This chapter provides an overview of Oracle Application Server Portal features and benefits. The topics include:
Portals allow clients to access information through a Web browser. This information usually comes from different data sources that the portal makes available through a single entry point. That entry point is known as a page.
Portals also support personalized views, so that each user or user group can customize both the content and the appearance of the portal to suit individual preferences and requirements.
For example, a financial analyst’s page would likely include information from real-time Internet-based stock quotes, financial reports from an online repository, and access to legacy financial accounting and banking systems. The data from these systems are independent of each other, but the portal allows them to exist within a single page.
Oracle Application Server Portal is a Web-based tool for building and deploying e-business portals. It provides a secure, manageable environment for accessing and interacting with enterprise software services and information resources. A portal page makes data from multiple sources accessible from a single location. Figure 3-1 shows a sample portal page from http://my.oracle.com. Each one of the tabbed areas within the Office tab contains information from a different data source.
The growth of the Internet and Internet technologies creates new opportunities and challenges for businesses. The earlier vision of free-flowing information shared over corporate intranets is meeting roadblocks because of information overload, system management complexities, and conflicting data. Shortcomings in technology and its implementation are limiting the impact of a complete corporate intranet on user’s core job functions. As a result, much of the potential revenue, productivity, and efficiency gains are not fully realized.
In response, organizations are turning to portals as key components of their e-business strategy. Portals are emerging as essential problem-solving mechanisms that provide a single source of interaction with all corporate information and the focal point for conducting day-to-day business. Companies are using portals and supporting applications as follows:
To provide access to instantly available, personalized, job-based information
In forums for groups to exchange, analyze, and discuss ideas
To automate business processes that integrate into daily activities
OracleAS Portal supports e-businesses by doing the following:
Providing secure access to existing information, no matter where it is: Portal developers can organize and structure content in a consistent and logical way. This reduces or eliminates the need for users to hunt for information through a variety of sources.
Supporting personalized views: Users and user communities can organize the information they access in ways that complement their work habits or interactions.
Providing self-service to users: Employees, partners, and suppliers who have important information to share with the community can do so without specific technical skills or help from a technology expert.
Enabling single sign-on: Users can log into the portal once per session and access all internal and external applications without logging into any of them.
Key features of Oracle Application Server Portal include the following:
An extensible framework: OracleAS Portal has an extensible framework that integrates Web-based resources such as Web pages, applications, business intelligence reports, and syndicated content feeds within standardized, reusable information components called portlets. Within a portlet, these resources are personalized and managed as a service of OracleAS Portal. Companies can create their own portlets for their existing Web resources and can select additional portlets from the growing catalog of third-party portlet providers. Additionally, Oracle Application Server provides many ready-made portlets out-of-the-box that are available for immediate use. The portal framework provides additional services including single sign-on, content classification, enterprise search, directory integration, and access control.
An easy-to-use, personalized interface: The OracleAS Portal interface provides an organized, consistent view of the business information, Web content, and applications that each user needs. Portal administrators and designers use a browser-based control panel to selectively grant access to applications and information by making portlets available only to specific users or user groups.
Self-service publishing: OracleAS Portal self-service publishing features allow authorized users to post and share any kind of document or Web content with other users anywhere in the world. Content contributors use controls for uploading documents, implementing version control, customizing page formatting and display, limiting access, and managing content without any requirement for technical expertise or HTML knowledge.
A scalable deployment architecture: The OracleAS Portal architecture is easily configured for departmental, regional, and enterprise-wide deployment. The deployment model supports a variety of configurations, including single host and multi-tier, on a broad set of hardware platforms and operating systems.
Integration with Oracle Application Server Web Cache: OracleAS Web Cache provides caching, compression, and assembly features to accelerate the delivery of both static and dynamically-generated Portal content.
OracleAS Portal incorporates a portal creation and deployment framework. The framework defines Web information sources as information components, and assembles these components within a portal page. It also supports customization of the Web page to one or more user communities.
Each portal page is divided into either item regions or portlet regions. Item regions allow you to add text, images, and files to a portal page. Portlet regions provide an area where you can place one or more portlets.
A portlet is an HTML or XML area that summarizes, promotes, or provides basic access to an information resource. The information resources can take on many forms and can serve many purposes.
Items and portlets are the fundamental building blocks of an OracleAS Portal page. Page owners create their own portal pages, and page owners can either maintain their own pages or delegate maintenance responsibilities to other users. Each portal page consists of content presented through one or more items and portlets and links that allow the client to navigate to another page or take some action.
OracleAS Portal provides an integrated set of features for self-service document publishing, file upload, page formatting, and access control. Collaborators and content publishers no longer need specific technical skills or a Webmaster to publish their content. Instead, they can use an item region on a portal page to publish their content and format content appearance using simple controls.
An item region includes built-in features for publishing, organizing, classifying, cross-referencing, and displaying the content it manages. Key components that make up an item region include:
Items that are the pieces of content themselves: Items are defined by the base content that makes up the item and one or more attributes that describe the item. Item publishers create items by completing a series of steps in a wizard. Additional features, such as item version control, check-in and check-out, expiration, and automatic indexing support collaborative document creation and ease content management tasks.
Styles that define how items are displayed: Item region style properties govern the colors, font properties, size, background images, banners, and other graphical elements for the items and navigation bars in an item region.
Item regions also include components that assist users in navigating or locating content of interest and allow for classifying content with categories and perspectives.
OracleAS Portal provides categories and perspectives as a means of applying a classification to the content (items and portlets) you add to your portal. Categories and perspectives can be used to locate content during searches. Categories are used to describe the type of content you are adding. For example, if you are creating a Human Resources page, you might have categories such as Benefits, Policies, and Payroll. Perspectives are used to describe the type of audience who might be interested in the content, such as managers, supervisors, and non-exempt employees.
OracleAS Portal searches can quickly and easily locate information managed within a portal page. OracleAS Portal supports the following search methods:
Basic searches only match attributes of items in the current portal page against the search criteria. A basic search compares the search criteria to the name, author, description, and keywords of all items within the selected page group.
Advanced searches allow the user to define or restrict the search by specific attributes. Users can specify that their searches do the following:
Return matches to any or all search terms
Search within a specific portal page or across all portal pages
Restrict searches to a particular category, perspective, item type, or attribute
Oracle Ultra Search searches perform comprehensive searches against portal-managed information. The Ultra Search engine searches through all content that has been indexed using Ultra Search, not just portal metadata. These searches can also return matches based on near matches (terms that appear close together), soundex matches (terms that sound like the search term), and fuzzy matches (terms with similar spellings to the search term).
A search result portlet displays the matches of any search. You can add this portlet to any portal page and customize which attributes it displays.
Content syndication is the aggregation, exchange, and distribution of information from content providers to syndicators to subscribers. The content providers deliver the content, the syndicators send the content, and the subscribers use the content. A content subscriber acquires a content catalog of subscription offers from a content syndicator and selects the desired subscription offers. When subscribing to content, the subscriber can choose to search for new information or have it automatically provided to them either when it is updated, or after a specified time interval.
Oracle Application Server Syndication Services delivers any database, legacy file system, or Internet content to any Internet subscriber, and automatically provides any content updates using any standards across any network. This simplifies the process of syndication or automated content exchange. Oracle Application Server Syndication Services provides a comprehensive solution for content aggregation, syndication, and distribution by letting you make available any or all of your content.
Content syndicators can use Oracle Application Server Syndication Services with the following benefits:
Aggregate content from databases, Web sites, enterprise applications, e-mail repositories, and legacy systems
Personalize the content to be delivered based on the profiles of their subscribers and deliver content updates based on the delivery policies associated with each subscription
Automate content delivery by sending content to subscribers when information relevant to them changes, or schedule a content delivery when establishing a subscription with subscribers, and deliver it to subscribers over multiple communication channels
Transform any content from any formatted source to a markup language suitable for the subscriber
In addition to standard Web browsers, wireless clients can also access OracleAS Portal pages. Working with Oracle Application Server Wireless, the portal automatically transforms the portal page structure to a format appropriate for the smaller screens of most wireless devices. Only portlets generating Oracle Application Server Wireless XML content display on the wireless device.
OracleAS Portal developers also have access to a set of page design tools that help in creating portal pages that optimize the wireless experience. With these tools, developers can build a distinct portal structure for their wireless users. The wireless pages and portal pages can share portlet instances. This allows clients to reuse portlets on browser and wireless clients without reconfiguring each portlet.
Oracle Application Server Portal leverages Oracle Application Server Single Sign-On (SSO) to provide single sign-on capabilities for secure access to portal content and applications. SSO works as a single, unified authentication service to all Oracle Application Server components, applications, and Web pages, storing user information and authenticating users against Oracle Internet Directory.
Portal clients access Oracle Application Server Portal applications through portlets. Clients can select the portlets that appear on their page from a list of providers registered with OracleAS Portal. Additionally, developers can use the Oracle Application Server Portal Developer Kit to create their own portlets.
Applications and information sources, represented as portlets, communicate with the portal through a provider. Each portlet only has one provider, and a provider can have one or more portlets that expose an underlying application or information source.
All portlets from portlet providers make use of Oracle Application Server Single Sign-On, regardless of their location. It is not necessary for portlets to be deployed within Oracle Application Server or even on the same hardware. This ensures that only authorized users are able to subscribe to a particular portlet and that authorized users can access all registered portlets by logging into their main portal page.
Some Oracle Application Server components act as portlet providers to OracleAS Portal. This allows you to easily integrate information from various Oracle Application Server components into a single portal page.
OracleAS Portal includes a simple report building facility. However, as your reports become more complex, you can import the report into Oracle Application Server Reports Services reports. You can deploy any Oracle Application Server Reports Services report as a portlet.
As a portlet provider, Oracle Application Server Discoverer offers worksheet portlets and list of workbooks portlets to OracleAS Portal users. A worksheet portlet contains information from a single Discoverer worksheet. The portlet displays this information in either a table, a graph, or both. The list of workbooks portlet presents a list of available workbooks.
The Oracle Content Management Software Development Kit (Oracle CM SDK) portlet provides a summary of information about your Oracle CM SDK data. Portlet subscribers can see their quota, initiate a file search, list documents or folders, and upload documents. The portlet also links to the Oracle CM SDK Web interface.
In addition to the list of Oracle Application Server components, a growing community of independent software vendors (ISVs) and Internet content providers are creating standard, supported portlets that access their applications and services. For these partners, customers can access the partner’s application or service through one or more pre-integrated portlets.
The current catalog of portlets includes the following services:
Business intelligence and reporting (including Axis Technology and Quest Software)
Collaboration (including Cubika Internet Technology and SiteScape)
Document, content, and knowledge management (including Interwoven and STI AS)
E-business applications, such as customer relationship management and enterprise resource management (including Billboard and Droplets)
News and information sources (including NT-Exchange.com)
Portal tools (including Curl Corporation and Oracle Application Server Portal Developer Kit)
Internet searches (including Business Objects and Quest Software)
The Oracle Application Server Portal Developer Kit (PDK) allows developers to either reuse existing applications as portlets or create new portlets. Developers can write portlets using familiar languages and technologies. These technologies can be as follows:
Java applications
Web pages built with any standard technology like Active Server Pages (ASPs) or Perl
Web services
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See Also: http://portalstudio.oracle.com for more information on the Oracle Application Server Portal Developer Kit
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Additionally, PDK developers can take advantage of the Knowledge Exchange, available through Portal Studio, to leverage portlets created by other Oracle Application Server Portal users.
Oracle Application Server Portal is closely integrated with Oracle Application Server Web Cache to improve the overall availability, scalability, and performance of OracleAS Portal. OracleAS Web Cache combines caching, compression, and assembly technologies to accelerate the delivery of both static and dynamically generated Portal content.
OracleAS Portal functions as a Web Cache origin server to take advantage of OracleAS Web Cache features such as fine-grained cache control and load balancing.
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See Also: Chapter 9, "Performance and Caching " for more information about Oracle Application Server Web Cache |
When you install Oracle Application Server Portal, an OracleAS Web Cache instance is automatically created with pre-defined cache configuration settings. Portal sites can choose from the following deployment options:
Co-located: OracleAS Web Cache runs on the same physical server as the Portal middle tier. This configuration is appropriate for smaller, low-volume sites where the scalability of the middle tier is not a concern.
Dedicated: OracleAS Web Cache is deployed on a dedicated server that sits in front of one or more Portal middle-tier servers. Dedicated deployments are usually preferable to co-located deployments, as there is no risk of resource contention with other server processes. OracleAS Web Cache performs well on commodity hardware, so a dedicated deployment does not have to be costly in terms of hardware expenditure.
For very high-volume sites and to avoid a single point of failure, two or more nodes running OracleAS Web Cache may be deployed behind a third-party network load balancer. If you have multiple deployments of OracleAS Portal, each Portal site can have its own OracleAS Web Cache server, or one or more sites can share a single Web Cache. Similarly, a Web Provider can share a Web Cache with a Portal site, or a dedicated Web Cache can be deployed in front of the Web server that hosts the Web Provider.
A browser-based console, Oracle Application Server Web Cache Manager, is used to administer all aspects of OracleAS Web Cache, including configuration of caching and load balancing rules, security, manual and automated invalidation, monitoring, and logging.
When a client requests an Oracle Application Server Portal page, many Oracle Application Server components service parts of the request. Requests have the following flow:
The client browser requests a portal page. Oracle Application Server Web Cache receives this request.
OracleAS Web Cache forwards the request to the OracleAS Portal Parallel Page Engine (PPE) through Oracle HTTP Server and mod_oc4j.
The PPE retrieves the portal page definition. The page definition contains information about the portlets on a page and their layout.
First, it checks if OracleAS Web Cache has a valid, cached copy of the definition.
Next, it checks if the portal cache has a valid, cached copy.
Finally, if no cached copy of the definition exists, then the PPE generates a page definition from data in the portal repository. The portal repository is either in the Oracle Application Server Metadata Repository or in your customer database.
The PPE parses the page definition. If a fully cached copy of the page exists, then the page is returned to the client browser through OracleAS Web Cache. If a fully cached copy of the page does not exist, the PPE builds the page from cached and non-cached data with the remaining steps.
For each portlet on the page, the PPE checks if a cached copy of the portlet content exists in the portal cache. Then the PPE forwards a request to the appropriate provider through OracleAS Web Cache.
Each provider either validates the cached portlet or generates content for the portlet. Web providers return this directly to the PPE using HTTP/S. Database providers return the results to the PPE through Oracle HTTP Server, mod_plsql, and OracleAS Web Cache, using HTTP/S or SOAP.
The PPE aggregates the content into a single page. This page is sent to OracleAS Web Cache.
OracleAS Web Cache returns the final page to the client browser.
Figure 3-2 illustrates this flow in terms of the OracleAS Portal architecture.
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