Chapter 1 Introduction to Portal Server Software

• About Portal Server Software

• Portal Server Communities

• Portal Server Search Server

• Portal Server Content Management

• Portal Server Data Management

• Portal Server APIs

About Portal Server Software

Portal Server allows administrators and delegated administrators to build portal pages and to make them available to individuals throughout an enterprise according to user identities. The Desktop is the interface that the end user accesses to view the content for a portal site.

The product is a component of the Sun Java^TM Enterprise System (Java ES), a software system that supports a wide range of enterprise computing needs.

Portal Server provides a framework and a set of software modules that offer the following:

• Security

• Mobility

• Identity-based content delivery

• Collaboration

• Business system integration

Portal Server's core framework supports the Java Specification Request (JSR) 168 Portlet Specification standard and the web services for remote portlets (WSRP) 1.0 specification for portal content. Portlet developers can use the Sun Java Studio Creator 2 application development tool or open standard tools to build portlets. Portal administrators can then leverage portlets, WSRP consumers, or additional portal tools for adding content to portal pages.

Portal Server is available in two editions:

• Enterprise edition is recommended for production environments. This edition provides the flexibility to create any supported deployment configuration. The enterprise edition supports Portal Server patch updates.

• Developer edition is recommended for product evaluations and for developers. The developer edition provides scripts that offer the following:

  • Easy startup and shutdown of all components and services associated with Portal Server

  • Fewer required user inputs

  • Simplified configuration processes

A Portal Server installation includes the following:

• Portal Server infrastructure (components are installed separately)

  • Sun Java System Directory Server 6.0

  • A web container, such as Sun Java System Application Server 9.1 (enterprise and developer editions) or GlassFish^TM (enterprise edition)

  • Sun Java System Access Manager 7.1 for identity and user management, including authentication, authorization, and federation

• Sun Portal Server 7.2, including Sun Java System Portal Sever Secure Remote Access

  • A portal server

  • A search server

  • A wiki based on JSPWiki.org

  • A management console

  • Pre-installed portlets and content providers

  • Sample enterprise portal and Desktop

• Java DB 10.3, Sun's supported distribution of the open source Apache Derby database, to support collaboration, or another supported database, such as one from Oracle, Inc.

• Java SDK 5 and 1.6.0_05, for applications development

• Common Agent Container 2.2, a stand-alone program that implements a container for Java management applications

Portal Server works with previously installed software components as long as the software is an appropriate version. For more information about product requirements, see Checking Hardware and Software Requirements Before Installing Portal Server 7.2 in Sun Java System Portal Server 7.2 Installation and Configuration Guide.

Portal Server Communities

Portal Server provides community services for end users. End users can use communities to work jointly with each other and the entire community.

A portal community consists of the following:

• An owner who sets up the community

• A portal page available to community members

• A list of members who subscribe to the community

• A set of services (usually portlets) available to the end users

• A set of data that the community uses

End users define and set up communities. Community members use communities to interact with others in the community and to manage content and business processes.

For more information about communities and collaboration, see Chapter 4, “Portal Server Community Features.”

Portal Server Search Server

Portal Server search server provides interfaces that allow end users to locate resources in a database. The search server provides the following:

• A robot to discover, convert, and summarize document resources

• An end-user interface, provided by the Desktop, using JSP providers

• Configuration tools provided by the Portal Server management console

• A command-line interface for system management

The search server supports federated search, a single search to multiple search engines, including the following:

• Google

• LDAP directory (using Java Naming and Directory Interface^TM API, or J.N.D.I. API)

• Relational database management system or RDBMS (using Java DataBase Connectivity software or JDBC^TM API)

• Remote resource description messages (RDM) interface

Federated search results are displayed on a single page.

Administrators use the Portal Server management console to perform search server administrative and configuration tasks. The Portal Server command-line interface provides psadmin subcommands for managing the search server.

For more information about the search server, see Chapter 5, “Portal Server Search Server”

Portal Server Content Management

Portal Server content management system (CMS) provides a hierarchical content store that supports structured and unstructured content, images, content templates, and versions. The content management system uses the JSR 170: Content Repository for Java Technology API specification, which provides a standard way for server-based applications to interact with content repositories.

How Portal Server users can use the content management system is based on their roles.

Portal Server administrators can use content management to create, edit, delete, and lock the following:

• Content categories

• Content versions

• Organize content into different categories for ease of management

Portal Server developers can use content management to do the following:

• Use CMS tag libraries and API to interactive with the content management system

• Use Portal Pack for NetBeans^TM IDE

Portal Server end users can use content management to perform the following tasks:

• Create and edit content

• Lock content versions

• Create, based on their roles, and assign templates to content

• Publish content by completing user tasks that are predefined in workflow definitions (Simple API for Workflow and Sun Java Composite Application Platform Suite must be available)

• Search for content

The content management systems provides portlets that do the following:

• Manage categories and content types with templates

• Manage contents for a content type

Portal Server provides sample CMS portlets that illustrate the use of OCM (object content mapping) functions for managing unstructured content, for managing structured content with predefined metadata, and for creating custom content types and contents. The samples available include the following portlets:

• Document Management Portlet that showcases how unstructured content is managed

• Article Management Portlet that showcases how structured content is managed

The sample CMS portlets use the Apache JackRabbit implementation of the JSR 170 specification.

Portal Server Data Management

Portal Server uses the following databases:

• LDAP directory stores data for directory and authentication services. Portal Server administrators use the management console and the command-line interface to manage the following:

  • Portal-specific user and organization information

  • WSRP data

  • Configuration data for portals and instances

• Search server database stores data about the following:

  • Resource descriptors data

  • Robot configuration data

  • Taxonomy data

  • Discussions data

• Relational database stores information about the following:

  • Communities

  • File sharing

  • Surveys

  • Wikis

  Two relational databases are available:

  • JavaDB - Sun's supported distribution of the open source Apache Derby and installed by default during Portal Server installation

  • Oracle - Must be installed

  Administrators can create JavaDB and Oracle instances on dedicated hosts.

• Java content repository stores the following information about content that is created using the content creation portlets:

  • Content versions

  • Templates

  • Categories

  • Metadata

Portal Server APIs

Portal Server provides programming tools that enable developers to create custom portlets. These include the following:

• Provider API for extending the base classes to create new providers

• Desktop API for creating new providers for delivering portal content

• Portlet API for implementing Java Specification Request (JSR) 286: Portlet Specification 2.0

• JSF Portlet Bridge 1.2 for running JavaServer^TM Faces-based applications as portlets in a web container that supports JSF 1.2

• Struts Portlet Bridge for developing Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE^TM) applications

• Simple API for Workflow for writing task management portlets in conjunction with Sun Java Composite Application Platform Suite human workflow feature

• Content Management API to interact with the content management system and write custom portlets for using content in the repository

• Administration portlet for developing administration portlets that enable Desktop functions of a portal to be managed from the Desktop instead of from the management console

• Authentication API for changing the appearance and behavior of the authentication screen, enabling authentication modules, and adding custom authentication modules

• Search APIs

  • Search API for creating and modifying search objects in C

  • C API for customizing the way the robot crawls URLs and generates resource descriptions

  • Java APIs for searching the database, for submitting data, and for manipulating search objects such as resource descriptions

  • Search provider tag library and helper beans to create custom search JSPs

  • Resource Description Manager API for enabling two processes to exchange resource descriptions across a network

Programmers can use other tools to create custom portlets. The ROME library (not a Portal Server tool) for parsing, generating and publishing RSS (rich site summary) and Atom feeds are examples.

Portal Server provides a sample portlet to illustrate portlet functions and facilitate the design of custom portlets. For more information about Portal Server programming tools, see Sun Java System Portal Server 7.2 Developer’s Guide