Chapter 1 Understanding Portal Server

This topic provides a conceptual overview of key features of Portal Server. The following sections are provided:

• About Portal Server

• Deployment

• Administration

• Aggregation and Presentation

• Search Server

• Communities and Collaboration

About Portal Server

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

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 allows administrators and delegated administrators to build portal pages and to make them available to individuals throughout an enterprise according to user identities.

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 standard 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.

A Portal Server installation provides the following:

• Sun Java System Directory Server

• A web container, such as Sun Java System Application Server or Sun Java System Web Server

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

• Sun Java System Portal Server

• A search server

• A wiki based on JSPWiki.org

• A management console

• Development tools

• Three sample portals

  • Sample enterprise portal

  • Sample developer portal

  • Sample community portal

• Java DB, an open-source database written in the Java programming language, to support collaboration (installed preconfigured)

Portal Server works with previously installed software components as long as the software is an appropriate version. For more information about product requirements, see the Sun Java System Portal Server 7 Installation Guide.

Aggregation and Presentation

Portal Server aggregates and presents content to the end user. The Desktop is the interface that the end user accesses to view the content for a portal site.

The Desktop organizes content into channels. Channels can display content that is provided in many formats, such as:

• XML (extensible markup language)

• JavaServer Pages^TM (JSP^TM) specification

• RSS (really simple syndication)

• HTML (hypertext markup language)

Portal Server implements a number of standards to simplify delivering content to the Desktop. These standards include the following:

• The Java Specification Request (JSR) 168 standard, which allows portlets to run in multiple portal environments. Integrating custom applications is not necessary when the JSR 168 specification is used.

• The J2EE^TM Connector Architecture (JCA), which allows application servers to access any data sources for which a resource application has been written.

• Web services for remote portlets (WSRP) 1.0 standard, a web services protocol for integrating content and interactive web applications from remote sources.

For more information about the Desktop, see Chapter 2, Understanding the Standard Desktop.

Communities and Collaboration

Portal Server provides collaboration and communication services for end users.

End users can use communities to work with others. 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 users

• A set of data that the community uses

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

Portal Server provides four Desktop channels that enable end-users to organize, schedule, and communicate with each other. The channels are the following:

• Address Book

• Calendar

• Instant Messaging

• Mail

For more information about communities and collaboration, see Chapter 3, Understanding Communities and Collaboration.

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 Google. LDAP directory (using Java Naming and Directory Interface^TM or JNDI), relational database management system or RDBMS (using Java DataBase Connectivity or JDBC^TM), and 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 4, Understanding the Search Server.

Administration

Administrators can use a browser interface, a command-line interface, or the Desktop to manage Portal Server. This topic provides the following sections:

• Management Console

• Command-Line Interface

• Administration Tag Library and Portlets

Management Console

Portal Server provides a management console, a browser interface, for performing administrative tasks required for managing the Portal Server. The tasks include:

• Managing multiple portals and their operations

• Setting up and managing containers and channels

• Customizing the Desktop for end users

• Enabling end users to personalize the Desktop

• Managing multiple search servers

• Tracking both end-user and system activities

  • End-user clicks on the standard Desktop

  • Configuration settings, statistics about channel actions, and statistics about Desktop requests and responses

  • Runtime information about the Portal Server and the Secure Remote Access server

For more information about the management console, see Chapter 5, Understanding the Management Console

Command-Line Interface

Portal Server software provides a command-line interface (CLI). The CLI allows portal administrators to do the following:

• Perform administrative tasks by typing commands using the keyboard

• Automate regularly recurring management tasks by incorporating them into scripts

The CLI offers a number of psadmin subcommands for managing portal tasks. These include subcommands for:

• Managing multiple portals and portal instances

• Deploying portal and portlet WAR files

• Managing the search server

• Managing Secure Remote Access server

• Managing monitoring

• Managing portal logging

Most subcommands commands are written specifically to mimic functions in the browser interface. For management functions that have no special commands, administrators use standard UNIX commands.

For information about all psadmin subcommands, see the Sun Java System Portal Server 7 Command-Line Reference.

Administration Tag Library and Portlets

Portal Server provides an administration tag library for developing administration portlets that enable a portal to be managed from the Desktop instead of from the management console. Administrators can use this tag library to do the following:

• Modify out-of-the-box administration portlets

• Develop portlets with new administration functionality

• Support user management, provider management, and portlet and WSRP management tasks

• Create and administer channels that are based on JSPProvider

• Write custom administration portlets with a custom user interface

• Write administrative portlets to manage any custom channel

Administrators can use administration portlets to grant delegated administration status to specified users. Portal Server provides a sample set of administration portlets that can be used to design a basic Desktop for delegated administrators.

For more information see Sun Java System Portal Server 7 Developer Sample Guide and Tag Library for Delegated Administration.

Deployment

Portal Server enables enterprises to design a variety of deployment scenarios. This section provides the following topics:

• Open and Secure Modes

• Multiple Portals

• Single Sign-On Authentication

Each enterprise assesses its own needs and plans its own deployment of Java Enterprise System. The optimal deployment for each enterprise depends on a variety of factors, including:

• The types of applications that Java ES is supporting

• The number of users

• What hardware is available

For more information about deployment planning and deployment scenarios, see the Sun Java System Portal Server 7 Deployment Planning Guide.

Open and Secure Modes

You can run Portal Server in open mode or secure mode, with or without Sun Java System Portal Server Secure Remote Access server.

In open mode, Portal Server is installed without the Secure Remote Access server. The typical public portal runs without secure access using HTTP or HTTPS.

In secure mode, Portal Server is installed with the Secure Remote Access server. Secure mode provides end users with secure remote access to required intranet file systems and applications. Only the IP address of the Gateway is published to the Internet.

Multiple Portals

Portal Server supports multiple portals using a single user repository. You can design, deploy, and administer each portal independently. Setting up multiple portals allows administrators to do the following:

• Deploy multiple portals and portal server instances on one or more hosts

• Use Access Manager software to manage users for all portals

• Provide different content for different portals

• Offer single sign-on (SSO) between portals

• Enable users to customize their desktops for each portal

To manage users, portal administrators use tools provided by Access Manager. User data in LDAP directories does not need to be synchronized with any other repository.

A portal is a collection of one or more Portal Server instances that deliver the same content and are mapped to a single URL. The content and services delivered by a portal are common to all of its instances.

A Portal Server instance is a web application deployed into a web container, using a particular portal context URI and serving requests on a specific network port. Each Portal Server instance is associated with a single portal.

Multiple portals share the same user repository, or Access Manager. These portals can be deployed on one or more hosts. Portals that use different Access Managers are not multiple portals.

Single Sign-On Authentication

Single sign-on (SSO) enables end users to enter a password once to gain authenticated access to various resource servers, which supply applications or services. The resource servers that an end user can access depend on what implementations of the SSO Adapter interface are available in the system.

Standard application programming interfaces (APIs) are used to provide user access to a resource server. To access a mail server, for example, an application uses the JavaMail^TM API.

To create an authenticated connection using an API, administrators provide the API with the configuration data for the connection. The SSO Adapter, which uses standard database terminology, provides this configuration data for an authenticated connection, and the SSO Adapter service stores that data.

The SSO Adapter service defines two levels of data:

• SSO Adapter template defines a class of connections to be made available to users. Many end users use a single template. The template defines data values that are the same for all users, including default values and what values a user can edit. Therefore, SSO Adapter templates are defined at a global service level.

• SSO Adapter configuration provides data values that are specific to an organization, role, or user. A configuration references a template and takes data values from the template for properties that the end user cannot change. Whenever an end user changes the user-editable properties of an SSO Adapter configuration, that configuration change applies only to that one end user.