portal strategy

© 2009 - artITians

Slide 1

Portal Technology

Strategy and Architecture

better business by design

© 2009 - artITians

Slide 2

Contents

• Scenario• Background• What is a Portal

– Look and Feel– Multiple Devices– Roles

• Architecture– Multi-tier– ÜberPortal (OverPortal)– Vortel

• Deployment• Recommendations• Further Work


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 3

Background

• Applications and web based content distributed to both internal and external users to the organisation.

• Delivery can by a variety of means including browser and thick and thin client applications

• There are various ways of delivering content through Portals.

• This presentation defines the strategy and the principles that are needed to avoid the unfettered promulgation of product sets and implementations.


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 4

Scenario

• Customer had been implementing portals to service different business units in an ad-hoc fashion.

• Content was being duplicated and there was not consistency in how it was being presented.

• A common portal solution that could be reused was being sought.


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 5

What is a Portal?

• A framework for presenting varied content types and applications to users.

• Content presented is aggregated from multiple sources• Is a single touch point, or One Stop Shop, for services and

information.• Content is recast to suit the display characteristics of multiple

devices types (PDA, mobile phone or PC). • Provides framework for Authentication Services and Managed Sign-

on integrated with Corporate Identity Management solutions. • Provides mandated Personalised Content appropriate to the role

filled. • Provides Personalisation Services permitting modification of

presentation of accessible content to support individual requirements.

• A Portal neither provides a web development environment nor Content Management Services.


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 6

Overview• Portal users are provided

with access to web content through the Portal infrastructure.

• Web content is presented via a browser (suited to the display device)

• Multiple content sources, both internal and external to Business.

• Content presentation to suit the class of viewing device.

• Users presented only with content for which they are authorised to see for their needs

• Content authors are able to create content and have it deployed via the Portal to targeted audiences.

Portal

Mobile

Fixed

Customers PartnersExternal Employees

Content Author

ManagedContent Store

InternalEmployeesContractors

Internal Web Sites

Internal Information

Stores

Internal Application

Servers

External Web Sites


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 7

Look and Feel

• The ‘Look and Feel’ of a Portal can be tailored to suit the user community..

• The User experience of a Portal can be dependent on what role the user fills or to which community they belong.

• Content can be delivered to multiple device types.

• The User interface can be automatically varied by the Portal to suit the device display characteristics.


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 8

Roles• The content with

which a Portal user is provided is dictated by where they sit within a role hierarchy.

• Content can be distributed to organisations, roles or individuals.

• An individual can belong to multiple roles within a single organisation.

Sub Organisation3

Sub Organisation2

Role 1 Role1 Role 2

Organisation

Sub Organisation 1

User 1 User 2Anonymous

(Generic User)User 4 User 5

Sub Organisation 4

Sub Organisation 5

Role 1

User 3

Sub Organisation3

Sub Organisation2

Role 1 Role1 Role 2

Organisation

Sub Organisation 1

User 1 User 2Anonymous

(Generic User)User 4 User 5

Sub Organisation 4

Sub Organisation 5

Role 1

User 3


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 9

Multi-tier Deployment

UberPortal

InternalExternal

HR BI CRMMeta Directory SensisContent Mgt

SAP

Application Servers

TIBCO BUS

Data Warehouse Backend Systems

Wireless Gateway

• Content required to be distributed to different organisational communities.

• To provide a single touch point to users an ÜberPortal should be deployed passing users, transparently, to the actual portal on which their content resides

• The mySAP Enterprise Portal provides ready access to SAP backend systems.

• Common Portal will be used to provide Online Services.

• ISM currently provides ‘Portal like’ services on the intranet


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 10

ÜberPortal

• Gartner coined the term “Überportal” whereby a single portal sits on top of the all other portals.

• Provides users a single touch point with all systems and information that the user is authourised to access sitting underneath.

• Provides a single location for a user to present their credentials.

• An Überportal, where properly implemented, can increase the level of satisfaction a user can experience when visiting a Portal environment.

• A Vortel (Vertical Portal) is a specialised Portal that has a narrow focus (ie presenting HR content to users)


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 11

Integration of Content

• Multiple portals are deployed in business

• The content created within a Content Management Solution will more than likely need to be published across multiple portal environments.

• The Content Management Solution adopted by business should have the capability to publish a single instance of created content to multiple destinations.

• Industry standards are being developed in the Portal space

• A Portlet that has been designed by a vendor to the JSR 168 standard will be able to be deployed to the complying Portal of another vendor

• Web Services for Remote Portals (WSRP) will provide the capability to expose a Portlet published by one vendor’s Portal as a Web Service in the Portal of another vendor

• JSR 170 will provide an API in Content Management solutions which will directly expose the stored content to to other applications (including Portals).


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 12

Recommendations - General

• All web content that is specifically targeted at either an individual, a role or a user community is to be presented to users via a Portal.

– Content presented through ISM is to be migrated to a Portal environment• mySAP Enterprise Portal, with its strong SAP integration capabilities, is

specifically aimed at employees• Target Common Portal at providing Online Services. • Adopt the concept of an Überportal (or Overportal) in order to provide users with

the benefit of a single point of entry to access web content and applications.– Until such time as there is sufficient synergy between the two Portal

solutions Sun ONE should be presented as the initial touch point for external and partner users with links being established to other internal facing Vortals as required.

– Until such time as there is sufficient synergy between the two Portal solutions mySAP should be presented as the initial touch point for internal users with links being established to other internal facing Vortals as required.

– Longer term the Common Portal should take on the role of Überportal for both internal and external facing domains.


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 13

Recommendations - Integration

• Users will need to traverse multiple Portals in order to access the content and applications

– A Navigation Strategy for Portal deployments that reflects the personalisation capabilities of the product and the presentation device is to be developed.

– The look and feel for all Portals that are deployed within company under the ÜberPortal should be consistent with one another so as to present a unified experience to the user.

• User Profile information will reside within the framework provided by each Portal Solution

– Novell eDirectory will initially host mySAP Profiles and a Common Directory Server will host Profiles for the Common Server

– A meta-directory capability to be implemented that will provide both a single point of administration of all user Profile Stores (LDAP or otherwise) and the capability to perform bi-directional synchronisation of stores when modified.

• Identity and role underpins the value of a Portal with the issue of Single-Sign-on being raised. With multiple Portals being deployed the user experience will be improved if they do not need to re-present credentials when traversing Portal environments.

– Integration with the Telstra Identity Management Services will facilitate this transfer of identity

• Have a single standards based Content Management framework which provides for the creation of content and the capability of deploying the single source to multiple targets.


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 14

Recommendations - Deployment

• To deploy content which is not always Portal aware several techniques can be utilised:– Provide links within the Portal to content that cannot readily be recast

for inclusion within a Portlet framework.– Use RSS (Rich Site Summary)to provide access to News type

content.– Integrate Web applications deployed through the .Net framework by

exposing them as Web Services• Deploy out-of the-box Portlets in their target Portal. Where JSR 168 has

been implemented (in Portlet and Portal) then consider the viability of deployment in the Überportal. – If WSRP has been implemented consider exposing it as a Web

Service.• URL Scraping must be avoided when the use of JSP can be provided. If

implemented then only where targeted content is well formed with no extraneous information that would detract from its useability.


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 15

Recommendations - Deployment

• Leverage the existing infrastructure and expertise to be built up in the deployment of the SOE to provide non-SAP specific content to internal users.

• Where practical, contain the scope of a Portal solution within a single tier so as to reduce the ongoing cost of adds, moves or changes to the user interface.

• Restrict Portlets deployed for non-standard Portals to those which are “out of the box”, and only when there is no equivalent standardised offering.

• The adoption of additional Portal products will only be considered where:– There is definite business benefit to be realised that cannot be achieved using the

existing Portal product set– The Total Cost of Ownership can be cost justified

• Where a case can be supported for the use of an additional Portal product the assessment criteria for adoption must include the following questions relating to standards under development:

– Does the Portal support (Web Services for Remote Portals) WSRP? If so then the Sun ONE Portal will subscribe to the required services.

– Do the Portlets satisfying a business requirement and included within the Portal support JSR 168? If so then it can be deployed on Portal.


© 2009 - artITians

Slide 16

Further Work

• Navigation Strategy– Develop a strategy that can be deployed across

each Common Portal instance• Provisioning and Access Control Strategy

– Integrate individual Portal instances with a Common Identity Management Service.

• Content Management Strategy– Deploy a single Content Management solution

that provides a single content source that can be deployed to multiple Portals


portal strategy

Internet

web content

content presentation

accessible content

web based content

content management services

varied content types

portal look

needs content authors