JBoss Portal
Radoslav Husár
PV219 Seminář webdesignu, 11th
March 2009
Language Selection
Out tonight's agenda
 What is portal and why use it?
 Java specifications
 Introducing JBoss portal
 Real life use case
 How to obtain and deploy JBoss portal
 Live demo with "hands on"
 Q&A


Get ready... 40 slides and a demo ahead!
Portals
in general
Portals provide Integration & Aggregation
Portal consumption
Why use a portal?
Why not just use a "regular" web framework?
 Requires all components to be written using the same technology
 Enterprise environments, soon or later, deal with multiple
technologies
 Some web frameworks have support for portals
Speed up deployment of a portal
 Existing standard portlets
 Build-in authentication (with SSO)
Integration of different technologies
CMS, JSF, JSP, PHP, Netvibes, Google...
Portals and SOA
Split your services
 Maintenance
 Lifecycle
 Technology independent
Split your web applications
 Maintenance
 Lifecycle
 Technology independent
 Don't split the user interface !
The user doesn't like to have to deal with multiple applications
 A portal is a window on the services - Unify access to your web
applications
Multiple users ­ Multiple views
When to use a portal?
 Simple application like a web blog ­ No?
 Intranet, Insurance Portal, Banking & Finance Portal ­ Yes!
 Have aggregation and integration of content from different sources?
 Need more than simple personalization?
JBoss Portal
in general
JBoss Portal
Focus on core portal functionality
Aggregation
 Provides a standards-based environment for serving a portal's web
interface and publishing/managing portal applications and content
 Consistent look and feel
Performance and scalability
Centralized security
 Single Sign On across elements of the portal
 Identity manager
Presentation framework (Portal vs Portlet level)
Scalability
 JBoss Enterprise Portal Platform scales well
 Don't forget you still need to scale other resources (e.g. database)
Standards based
 JSR-168: Portlet Specification
(Final release: Oct 27th, 2003)
 JSR-286: Portlet Specification 2.0
(Proposed Final Draft: Dec 13th, 2007)
 JSR-301: Portlet Bridge Specification for JavaServer Faces
(Early Draft Review 2: Sep 10th, 2007)
What is a Portlet?
User interface component targeted at the portal ecosystem
 implementing given interface
 standardized
Similar to web applications in
 Deployed in a portlet container
 Can better focus on single task
 Can delegate common ( shareable) concerns
 Reusable
What is new in JSR-286 Portlet
Specification 2.0
 Better interaction with a portal in a various manners
Public render parameters feature (to show improved interoperability)
 Use cases
Several portlets on the same page share the same zipcode, and are
able to display informations related to the geographic location
 Weather
 Map
 Address
Public render parameters use case - XML
Public render parameters use case - Java
Leverage of other JBoss Enterprise
Middleware Software components
JBoss SX
 JAAS based domain security subsystem
JBoss Cache
 Performance
 Fault tolerance
Hibernate
 ORM
 database independence

Leverage of other JBoss Enterprise
Middleware Software components 2
jBPM
 Business process
 Better flexibility
JBoss Web Services
 WSRP
 REST
...because it runs in JBoss Application Server
Identity Server integration
A set of interfaces to integrate with any identity server:
 OpenLDAP
 Red Hat Directory Server
 OpenDS
 Sun Directory Server
 Microsoft Active Directory
 others
...it's all about integration!
Single Sign-On integration
Several applications but a single login challenge to the user
 Single sign-on (SSO) is a method of access control that enables a
user to log in once and gain access to the resources of multiple
software systems without being prompted to log in again. Single
sign-off is the reverse process whereby a single action of signing out
terminates access to multiple software systems.
Provided set of interfaces to integrate with any SSO framework
 CAS
 JOSSO
 Open SSO
 others
JBoss Portal
as a community driven OSS
Community
 a large base of users
 active forums
 multiple environments, OS, database... supported
 user input
 early feedback
 helps OSS to anticipate needs before final releases
 10,000 downloads a month
Strong points given by users:
Why use JBoss Portal?
 Modularity
 Seamless integration
 Reduced costs
 Scalable architecture
 Professional support quality
Related projects
JBoss Wiki
 Wiki portlet
JBoss Forums
 Forums portlet
 More portlets on portletswap.com (being revamped)
 Increasing number of portlets available globally
JBoss Portal as a product
 Open Source with LGPL license ­ use freely, business friendly
licence
 Backed up to 24x7 by "Support from the Source"
 Many JBoss certified partners (HP, Cap Gemini, Alfresco, Atos
Origin, Unisys...) ­ solution you can trust!
Future plans
 Server agnosticism ­ run everywhere!
 Federated search ­ is the simultaneous search of multiple online
databases or web resources and is an emerging feature of
automated, web-based library and information retrieval systems. It is
also often referred to as a portal or a federated search engine.
 WSRP 2.0 ­ Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) is an
OASIS-approved network protocol standard designed for
communications with remote portlets.
 New presentation framework
 Improved content framework
 Our needs!
Standards/OSS in enterprise in general
What are standards?
 uniform engineering or technical criteria, methods, processes and
practices that everyone follows
Why use them?
 easy to start using
 easy to stop using
 easy to migrate to different solution provider
 shareable components
As a developer?
 You are getting the entire budget because you don't have to pay for
the license!
JBoss Portal
live demo
"Installation"
JBossAS/Portal Bundle
 Zero Installation Required (this is Java life!)
 Get supported Java (JDK 4, JDK 5)
 Start Server (./run.sh -c default)
 Point your browser to http://localhost:8080/portal
Standalone JBoss Service Archive (SAR)
 jboss-portal.sar ­ Core framework code
 portal-core.war ­ stores layouts/themes
 portal-server.war ­ portal server root context
Database to use
 Get your favorite (RDBMS) database
 Get JDBC driver (copy to ./server/default/lib)
 Hibernate DDL/DML executed on initial startup
 HSQL embedded (this is not for production!)
Q&A