JBoss and Liferay provide open portals to SOA

There are more than 700 ways to operate Liferay, counting the various combinations of middleware and database platforms. I tested the Professional version with Tomcat on a Windows 2003 server, and had the portal running in few minutes. Documentation is better in this release, though I did spot a few errors. But true to the community spirit, I easily found the corrected configuration steps on Liferay’s discussion forum.

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Liferay portals have a smart, Web 2.0 look and the supplied portlets operate consistently and intuitively. For example, the GUI Administration portlet let me quickly add organizations and locations that represented a typical corporation’s structure. Within this hierarchy, I then quickly created user accounts with appropriate roles. For larger implementations, you can integrate Liferay with an external LDAP repository (a default connector is included for Exchange), creating an SSO (single sign-on) environment.

For document management, Liferay 4.0 adds support for JSR 170 through Apache Jackrabbit. Using the Document Library portlet, I created folders, uploaded documents and images, and assigned access permissions. Alternately, you can integrate Liferay with another open source content repository, such as Alfresco or Magnolia -- or even integrate with a closed-source vendor like Vignette.

Liferay’s Journal portlet let me add news articles and product information to my test portal, turning it into both a public Web site and intranet. Content editors format this information with a rich text editor, so little training should be required. CMS functions extend to versioning and document expiration. Similarly, designers should not require special skills to customize the portal look because templates are based on XML or the Velocity (.vm) format.

For end-users, Liferay is just as usable. Once I logged in, for instance, I created public and private spaces with one click and then added portlets by just dragging and dropping them anywhere on a page. The supplied portlets cover an excellent range -- from RSS feeds and wikis to community discussion forums. You can change the look and feel of individual pages by selecting a different theme. Adding a language portlet is easy, and developers or content contributors can localize portlets, CMS content, and page layouts for each language (13 language resources are included).

Enterprises wanting a platform for customization and SOA jobs will find most technologies supported. Coders can build JavaServer Faces portlets using their preferred visual development environment or the Struts framework. Liferay also supports WSRP, though this is Version 1.0. As a test, I easily used WSRP to consume data from public Web services, including stock quotes and shipping quotes, and displayed them in a portlet window.

The enterprise version uses OSCache (a widely used open source, high-performance J2EE caching framework) for clustering and caching portlets. As a result, Liferay appears scalable for larger organizations.

Using Liferay Portal 4.0 was totally enjoyable. I was impressed with the solid administration, flexible deployment options, and how much functionality comes out of the box. There’s strong standards support, but JBoss has a bit of an edge here if you consider their upcoming versions.

If I had to quickly create a finished portal with open source tools, Life­ray would be my first choice for its usability, polished look, and supplied portlets. JBoss, however, has very good overall middleware offerings, plus technical and support quality. If you have the developer resources or funding for professional services, a JBoss portal is a fine choice. Plus, the forthcoming versions of JBoss will include the latest technologies and standards support required for SOA projects.