Portals are no longer just jazzed-up intranets. Now that many applications are Web-enabled, portals are becoming the enterprise
desktop and replacing the familiar browser. Dive below the surface, and you'll find a portal's distinguishing characteristics:
Rich functions that enable swift information exchange for employees, partners, and consumers.
According to Gartner, a wise portal deployment can help enterprises realize millions of dollars in productivity savings, because
it often reduces days of employee workload to a few hours. Further, Meta Group reports that portals can return your investment
in 18 months or less.
Yet for IT managers, reaching this nirvana is far from certain; there's a long list of information- and system-architecture
issues to be resolved first. In the end, choosing a portal isn't about infrastructure -- it's about how a portal addresses
and handles the tasks your business deems most crucial.
For example, a basic portal won't automatically lessen information overkill; that takes support for strong identity management
along with role-based customization and personalization. If this support is executed properly, users log in once and interact
with information tailored to their jobs -- whether that data is fed from a legacy database; content- or document-management
system; another portal; or a new, Internet-based application.
Moreover, portals are redefining the way new applications are created, deployed, and managed. At the core of this movement
you'll find Web services and related open standards. Microsoft .Net, Sun's Java System, WSRP (Web Services for Remote Portlets),
and a number of Java Portlet Specifications -- JSR (Java Specification Request) 168, 170, 188, and 207 -- may help disparate
systems freely interact (see "PortletStandard Predicament"). This openness and modularity provides the option of purchasing third-party portlets for specific functions.
Development efforts -- based on existing .Net and Java skills your staff likely holds -- can then be focused on an enterprise's
unique portal requirements.
The top portal solutions will run on common J2EE app servers, such as IBM WebSphere or BEA WebLogic, or .Net, or both. Here's
what differentiates otherwise closely matched products: whether a portal runs best on a vendor's own platform and how well
it truly integrates with existing enterprise systems, such as directory and security.
There are three portal formats. One favors a tightly integrated APS (application platform suite) approach. Here, the application
server, integration framework, and portal are combined into one platform. BEA, Oracle, Sun, Microsoft, and IBM(reviewed in October) follow this model.
With the APS approach, developers can more easily leverage existing databases and reuse business logic. However, you can get
locked in to a particular vendor's method of deploying applications or server management.
An alternate method -- fusing diverse systems through the portal application -- is the path Vignette and Plumtree(reviewed in February) follow. With this method, you may sacrifice some ability to manage applications throughout their life
for the freedom to choose the best application server and other components to meet specific needs.
Lastly, ERP vendors such as SAP provide portal access to their own application along with some additional integration capabilities.
SAP was invited to participate in this roundup but declined.
BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1
By folding WebLogic Portal (and the optional WebLogic Integration product) into its WebLogic Platform 8.1, BEA delivers an
outstanding unified platform for building and integrating not just portals but also enterprise applications. Developers can
work on familiar programming turf and deploy their apps to the portal using Web services, while Web-based tools let business
users quickly assemble and configure new portals.
A single installer loads all parts of WebLogic Platform 8.1 for quick and trouble-free startup. Using the included Portal
Designer, I assembled prebuilt elements into a portal and programmed portlets; the Design view made it easy to insert, rearrange,
and remove portlets.
Common services, such as collaboration and search, are available, along with several specific to e-commerce that make storefronts
relatively easy to build. If you need more, WebLogic Integration Server, which wasn't available for testing, has adapters
for a long list of third-party applications and legacy mainframe systems.
The WebLogic IDE (integrated development environment) Application palette exposed the Java elements of my portal, which simplified
adding navigation to portlets and performing related jobs. I also liked the unified user profile; it let me construct a single
sign-on for users that allowed access to the general portal and passed their credentials to a custom content-management system
and Oracle financial system.
Because WebLogic Portal is XML-based, you have great flexibility in changing a portal's look and feel. I easily altered themes,
menu structures, and layout in WebLogic Workshop. More complex tasks, such as building Java portlets from the ground up, are
equally straightforward; Workshop automatically generates JSP code based on information entered in a Java control's palette.
I found that this approach reduced low-level coding, saving time and effort. What's more, the Portal Resource Designer let
me define the properties, rules, and actions that display personalized content to users -- and quickly create campaigns to
send e-mails or product discounts.
The Web interface is clearly organized into major tasks, such as portal and content management, which should reduce training.
Plus, resources may be customized by user roles, decentralizing portal management. Skilled developers can use Workshop to
code portlets and perform elaborate portal template design, and the WebLogic Administration portal allows business users to
build and modify portals in parallel.
WebLogic Portal's content management is adequate. Users can view a folder hierarchy and upload various types of files. Similarly,
search locates information within the BEA repository -- but it doesn't extend to as many external sources as some of the other
portal products, such as Microsoft SharePoint Portal.
On the flip side, the Administration portal doesn't skimp on what BEA terms "interaction management" or personalization. For
instance, using the Content Selector Editor, I had no trouble specifying which documents appeared in the portal based on a
visitor's role and other criteria. End-users also receive traditional portal functions, such as customizable My Pages.
For rapid assembly of custom-fit portals, especially those that need to integrate with existing commerce and other complex
apps, WebLogic Portal 8.1 is a good fit.
Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003
For organizations invested in Microsoft technology, SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (and underlying Windows SharePoint Services)
provides the best out-of-box experience of the portal products tested.
Installation requires Windows Server 2003 and works best with SQL Server 2000 and Active Directory. With those requirements
met, the portal installs in less than an hour, yielding a functional site complete with search, topics, and news. What's more,
setup loads various Web Parts (portlets) that end-users can immediately hook up to desktop applications such as Microsoft
Excel 2003, thereby lowering development costs.
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