Preface

This guide describes a portal service that is built from Sun Java^TM Enterprise System (Java ES) components.

The guide covers the development and deployment life cycle of the Portal Service on Application Server Cluster reference configuration, including the following topics:

• the portal service business and technical requirements that are the basis for the reference configuration design

• the solution architecture

• step-by-step instructions for implementing the architecture

The purpose of the reference configuration, and this reference configuration guide, is to make it easy for Sun customers to implement a well-designed, tested solution for their portal services.

This preface contains the following sections:

• Who Should Use This Reference Configuration Guide

• Before You Read This Reference Configuration Guide

• How This Reference Configuration Guide is Organized

• Java ES Documentation

• Sun Welcomes Your Comments

this reference architecture supports Solaris^TM systems that use the SPARC® and x86 families of processor architectures: UltraSPARC®, SPARC64, AMD64, Pentium, and Xeon EM64T. The supported systems appear in the Solaris 10 Hardware Compatibility List at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl. This document cites any implementation differences between the platform types.

Who Should Use This Reference Configuration Guide

This guide is intended for system architects who are developing portal services for their organizations. It is also intended for system administrators who will install and configure the portal service architecture that is described in this guide.

This guide assumes familiarity with the following:

• The UNIX^® operating system

• Internet protocol (IP) computer networks

• Enterprise-level software products

• Java ES and its components

Before You Read This Reference Configuration Guide

Familiarize yourself with the basics of Java ES before reading this guide. See Java ES Documentation for more information about documentation resources.

How This Reference Configuration Guide is Organized

This reference configuration guide provides information about Sun's development of the reference configuration architecture and step-by-step instructions for implementing the reference configuration architecture on your network. This reference configuration guide is organized into the following chapters:

• Chapter 1, Introduction to the Portal Service Reference Configuration describes the overall goals of the reference configuration and the business and technical requirements for portal services for medium-sized organizations.

• Chapter 2, Reference Configuration Architecture describes the architecture that is needed to meet the requirements. Use this chapter to understand the architecture before you attempt to implement it.

• Chapter 3, Deployment Specifications describes how to prepare the detailed technical specifications that you will need to deploy the reference configuration architecture in your environment. The chapter includes a set of sample specifications that you can adapt for your own use.

• Chapter 4, Implementation Module 1: Directory Server With Multimaster Replication contains detailed procedures for installing and configuring the directory service module in your environment.

• Chapter 5, Implementation Module 2: Access Manager With Session Failover on Application Server contains detailed procedures for installing and configuring the Access Manager service module in your environment.

• Chapter 6, Implementation Module 3: Portal Server With Portlet Session Failover on Application Server Cluster contains detailed procedures for installing and configuring the portal service module in your environment.

• Chapter 7, Implementation Module 4: Secure Remote Access Gateway contains detailed procedures for installing and configuring the Secure Remote Access (SRA) Gateway module in your environment.

Java ES Documentation

For more information about the Java ES components that are used in the reference configuration, see the resources in the Java ES documentation set. The documentation set provides extensive information about Java ES, its components, and its implementation. For the latest documentation, go to http://docs.sun.com/prod/entsys.5. A wealth of Java ES resources is also available at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hubs/javaes/overview.

Sun Welcomes Your Comments

Sun is interested in improving its documentation and welcomes your comments and suggestions. To share your comments, go to http://docs.sun.com and click Send comments. In the online form, provide the full document title and part number. The part number is the 7- or 9-digit number on the book’s title page or in the document’s URL. For example, the part number for this document is 819-2095.