SharePoint Portal Server 2003's usability is apparent from the outset. I had no trouble assigning roles to domain users and
defining audiences imported from Microsoft Exchange distribution lists. Similarly, molding the default portal required little
more than switching to edit mode and dropping Web Parts into place.
You'll find multiple ways to structure a SharePoint-built portal. I began filling out my portal by creating topics and areas,
which appear in a site map hierarchy listing. Or you can build a new site that becomes searchable from the Sites Directory
and is automatically integrated with the portal's navigation. In either case, uploading files from the default document library
can start immediately.
Like most Microsoft products, SharePoint Portal provides a rich end-user experience thanks to especially accessible functions.
A MySite is built for each user when they first access this feature, and users can easily populate a MySite by dragging and
dropping Web Parts. MySites may either be private or have a public view with shareable information -- the tenet of teamwork.
Microsoft's proprietary search engine performed very well in returning relevant results for documents in SharePoint Portal
sites, Lotus Notes, Exchange public folders, and file shares. And because SharePoint is deeply integrated with Office 2003,
I was able to create a new Word document and save it directly to my portal's Document Workspace. This opens up a world of
basic content management features, including versioning, simple routing, and approvals.
Likewise, the portal sites are basically FrontPage 2003 Web sites, so I could change the look of my portal with minimal effort.
For developers, FrontPage 2003 is a good option for creating SharePoint site templates; I also used FrontPage 2003 to build
a data-driven Web Part that displayed information from a SQL 2000 customer database.
At the next level, IT professionals can create Web Parts with Visual Studio .Net to interact with applications and Web Services.
The .Net object model helped me build a custom Web Part more quickly and with fewer lines of code than with ASP. Furthermore,
SharePoint stores user credentials so you can create a single sign-on for users to access multiple applications.
On the downside, JSR 168 is not supported. And of course, it helps to be a Windows shop: The Office 2003 focus means there's
a list of functions that won't work (or are of limited value) with Office 2000 and Office XP. However, SharePoint Portal Server
2003 can use any of the 300 Microsoft BizTalk Server application connectors, and SharePoint ships fairly complete code samples
to integrate with SAP, Siebel, and PeopleSoft.
Overall, SharePoint Portal Server 2003 has advanced significantly from the last release. The seamless integration with familiar
Microsoft desktop and development tools helps offset the potentially higher cost of implementing this solution if you don't
already use the latest Microsoft client and back-end products.
OracleASPortal 10g
Oracle has built an interesting software deployment model. Instead of an à la carte approach, Oracle Application Server 10g
includes OracleAS Portal and a variety of complementary tools and services, including OracleAS Reports, Oracle Single Sign-On,
Oracle Ultra Search, OID (Oracle Internet Directory), and OracleAS Integration.
Even with all these parts, the system remains simple to manage and use. The only caveat is that because Portal 10g is so closely
tied to all the other pieces of the package, there's not a lot of flexibility to pick and choose alternate components.
OracleAS Portal's built-in portlets allowed me to apply different levels of security to different pages so I could hand over
section administration to others. Because Application Server has so many components, Oracle takes responsibility for core
service if you use its directory server, which can then integrate with third-party apps. (But you're on your own with a third-party
ID product.)
For example, OID stores user and group information; in turn, OID interacts with third-party security management products,
including Netegrity SiteMinder. This interaction sometimes means extra administration steps compared to other portal solutions
because it creates an extra layer versus just tying directly into an existing directory. However, I didn't have trouble controlling
user privileges and synchronizing with an external LDAP directory.
An initial Oracle portal can be populated with little or no programming. A simple wizard walked me through creating pages,
assigning layouts, and adding portlets. From there, I specified the amount of customization available to end-users -- entitlements
that ranged from rearranging portlets to full page-building options. Built-in functions such as smart links helped me quickly
create navigation bars for a pleasing end-user experience.
Similar to the Sun and IBM offerings, Portal 10g allows page templates specifically for mobile devices. Moreover, Oracle has
top international options, supports 28 languages, and allows authors to maintain multiple translations of their content.
There's no lack of ways to populate an OracleAS portal. I started with the basics -- WebClipping portlets that display information
from a Web page within the portal -- and quickly graduated to a dynamic portlet that charted sales data in an Oracle database.
Building this function and passing data from one portlet to another was relatively easy and codeless. Adding HTML and JSP
content to portal areas requires just a few steps. Oracle's remote provider let me include data from outside sources using
Web Services by simply searching a public directory for the service I wanted.
The OracleAS Integration tool helps developers create portlets that interact with SAP, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and other common
environments. For pure J2EE application development, there's Oracle JDeveloper 10g; in addition to its nice visual environment
for hard-core programming, a wizard helps nonprogrammers create uncomplicated, custom portlets. And Oracle has arguably one
of the stronger partner programs, resulting in a library of more than 400 pre-built and supported portlets.
This portal offers decent content management. Browser-based wizards make it easy for page designers to publish information,
and business users can use the same process to upload documents that automatically flow into a predefined content taxonomy.
Although it doesn't match Vignette's prowess, Oracle content management goes beyond the basics with check-in/out, item-level
permissions, and automatic content expiration.
Oracle Ultra Search indexes documents in databases, file systems, IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) mail systems, and
Web servers. Yet unlike many search engines, Ultra Search explores more than one repository at a time -- resulting in better
speed and more complete results. OracleAS Portal can initiate a search when users view a page and then display the results
of the search automatically -- an interesting twist on customizing content for users (Plumtree is the other portal I reviewed
with this capability).
Underneath this lies Oracle Application Server. The servlet engine retrieves portlet content, manages caching, assembles pages,
and delivers completed pages in parallel, resulting in very fast response times. Oracle Application Server has a good, industrial-strength
design, and because it's included in the package, you'll get decent value from it.
Sun Java System Portal Server 6.2
Sun has adeptly applied its Java leadership and hardware technology to the portal area, yielding a secure, extensible, high-performance
solution. Additionally, Java System Portal Server 6.2 runs on non-Sun app servers and allows substitution of other third-party
components, including content-management and development tools.
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