Chapter 1 Overview
The Project WebSynergy Milestone 4 Getting Started Guide provides basic instructions for installing and quickly getting up and running with Project WebSynergy Milestone 4 software, the next-generation Web 2.0 application aggregation and presentation platform from Sun Microsystems, Inc.
This chapter includes the following topics:
How to Use This Guide
The best way to use this guide depends on whether someone has already installed Project WebSynergy software for you to explore or whether you want to install WebSynergy yourself.
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If WebSynergy has already been installed by someone else — Skip the installation chapter and jump ahead to Chapter 3, Using Project WebSynergy Software to start using WebSynergy right away. Most users fall into this category. WebSynergy is browser-based, so if someone has given you the address to use for a WebSynergy installation, you can just point your browser to it and you do not need to install anything on your system.
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If you want to install WebSynergy yourself — If you are a system administrator, application developer, or general user who wants to install WebSynergy for yourself or your organization, start with Chapter 2, Installation and Configuration.
Whichever kind of user you are, it is recommended that you read the remainder of this chapter to get a sense of what WebSynergy is and what it can do for your organization.
What is Project WebSynergy?
Project WebSynergy is Sun's next-generation Web 2.0 application aggregation and presentation platform. It is a suite of integrated software products that enables businesses large and small to pull together applications and content from a variety of Web-based and internal sources and present them as a unified, customizable portal on Web browsers, kiosks, and mobile devices. WebSynergy makes it easier for users to find and use the tools and information they need when they need them.
Project WebSynergy is a collaborative effort between Sun Microsystem's Portal Server team, the Liferay Community, and the OpenPortal community. WebSynergy integrates technologies from these three products to enable enterprise-class portals that are easy to use for end users, system administrators, and developers alike.
WebSynergy enables:
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Social Networking for the Enterprise
Find people with the answers across organizations, silos, and hierarchies, and boost productivity in distributed teams.
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Enterprise Widgets for Collaboration Work
Bundled Productivity Widget Suites to get work done (CMS, Workflow), and Information Widget Suite for Effective Collaboration (blogs, wikis).
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Internet Widgets on the Enterprise Extranet
Build stickiness into your intranet with Google Gadgets, YouTube, and Facebook widgets.
Who Uses Project WebSynergy?
Project WebSynergy offers features for general users, system administrators, and application and portal developers.
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For General Users, WebSynergy makes it easy to communicate, collaborate, and customize the applications shared by your organization. Social networking components, like blogs, wikis, bookmarks, and messaging can be presented side-by-side with proprietary and third-party business and productivity applications. Different user communities can have their own portals, layouts, and customizations, and WebSynergy can be scaled down or up to suit organizations from the very small up to the enterprise level.
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For System Administrators, WebSynergy makes it easy to manage users, groups, communities, permissions, and highly specific levels of security. A browser-based GUI makes managing portals, portlets, plugins, and applications as simple as dragging and dropping. WebSynergy runs on top of the enterprise-class, open source GlassFish Application Server, which means that WebSynergy can be optimized according to your needs for performance, reliability, security, load balancing, and clustering, among other server characteristics.
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For Application and Portal Developers, WebSynergy makes it easy to develop portlets, portals, plugins, services, content management, workflows, and themes using your own tools, including NetBeansTM, Eclipse, and Dreamweaver. WebSynergy is based on the open source OpenPortal and Liferay 5.2 code bases, which means what you develop in WebSynergy will be standards-based, portable, and maintainable. You can combine familiar Ajax, Jmaki, Ruby, PHP, and Java technologies and techniques with WebSynergy's powerful presentation capabilities to deliver the kind of rich, dynamic, interactive user experience previously available only in complex custom-built Web applications.
Project WebSynergy Features
Project WebSynergy provides a new class of portal functionality by which users can define their own Web spaces. With built-in content and document management, human workflow development tools, enterprise identity integration, and social networking features, system administrators and application developers can now deploy a platform that allows for rapid rollout of next generation Web capabilities for their users.
Key WebSynergy features include:
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Identity-based content delivery
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User-managed Web spaces, including user self-Web publishing and user access controls
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Rapid and simple Web site design tools make it possible to quickly set up Web sites for content, collaboration, and interactivity, with out of the box templates
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Built-in collaboration, with bundled wiki, blog, task management, calendaring, document sharing, polls, IM, and email applications
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Document and Web content management system with workflow, staging, and publication tools
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Syndicate portlets and widgets with REST
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Develop widgets using the JSR 286 portlet standard as well as scripting standards such as Ruby, PHP, and JMaki.
AdditionalProject WebSynergy Documentation
The Project WebSynergy documentation set is available on the Project WebSynergy Document Collection page.
Additional documentation is also available on the Liferay wiki and OpenPortal documentation sites.
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