Building and Managing Enterprise-Wide Portals

355 Pages·2005·7.196 MB·English

by  Polgar J., Bram R.M., Polgar A.

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Jana Polgar
Monash University in Melbourne, Australia
Robert Mark Bram
Monash University in Melbourne, Australia
Anton Polgar
Monash University in Melbourne, Australia
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Hershey • London • Melbourne • Singapore
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Copyright © 2006 by Idea Group Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
without written permission from the publisher.
Product or company names used in this book are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the
names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI of the trademark
or registered trademark.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Polgar, Jana, 1945-
Building and managing enterprise-wide portals / Jana Polgar, Robert Mark Bram, and Anton Polgar.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: "This book discusses the technology behind portals and grid networks, including topics such
as management issues, deployment considerations, facilities and tools for creating and managing grid
and portal applications"--Provided by publisher.
ISBN 1-59140-661-7 (hbk.) -- ISBN 1-59140-662-5 (pbk.) -- ISBN 1-59140-663-3 (ebook)
1. Web portals. 2. Web services. 3. Computational grids (Computer systems) I. Bram, Robert Mark,
1974- II. Polgar, Anton, 1946- III. Title.
TK5105.88813.P65 2005
025.04--dc22
2005023875
British Cataloguing in Publication Data
A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this
book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.
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Preface ................................................................................................. vii
Section I: The Toolset
Chapter I. Introduction.......................................................................... 1
The Idea of a Portal......................................................................... 1
Technology Aware Managers .......................................................... 3
Service-Oriented Architecture.......................................................... 4
Chapter II. The Foundations of XML and WSDL............................... 7
What is XML? ................................................................................ 8
XML Document Processing and Development ............................... 10
XML Authoring and Java Parsers .................................................. 15
Web Services Description Language: WSDL ................................. 22
Document Object Model ............................................................... 28
Chapter III. Protocols.......................................................................... 32
UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration).............. 32
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)........................................ 48
What is URI, URL, URN?............................................................. 52
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Section II: Web Services as Shared Resources
Chapter IV. Web Services .................................................................. 55
Multi-Tier Component-Based Architecture..................................... 56
Web Service Architecture.............................................................. 58
Web Services with JAXB.............................................................. 59
Web Services with JAX-RPC........................................................ 63
Web Service Discovery and Invocation.......................................... 72
XML Documents as Part of Web Services..................................... 76
XML-Based Web Service Endpoint Considerations....................... 79
Chapter V. Servlets............................................................................. 82
The Servlet Application Architecture.............................................. 83
Chapter VI. Java Server Pages (JSP)................................................ 94
JSP Development Notes................................................................ 96
Integrating Servlets and JSP........................................................... 98
Web Module Deployment............................................................ 100
Chapter VII. Web Service Design Issues........................................ 104
Service Endpoint Design .............................................................. 105
Web Service Client Design .......................................................... 110
Available Web Application Frameworks ...................................... 115
Section III: Putting Portals on the Web
Chapter VIII. Portals......................................................................... 119
Historical Background ................................................................. 121
What Do Portal Services Deliver.................................................. 127
Chapter IX. Portal Development Framework.................................. 134
MVC Model and Portlets............................................................ 136
Overview of Portal Concepts....................................................... 138
Portlet Lifecycle........................................................................... 145
Environment for Portals................................................................ 162
Portal Deployment....................................................................... 164
Performance and Implementation ................................................. 167
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Chapter X. Accessing Remote Locations......................................... 173
Cooperative Portlets.................................................................... 177
Page-to-Page Communication Scenarios...................................... 182
Chapter XI. Portlet Authentication and SSO ................................... 186
Authentication Process................................................................. 186
Single Sign On (SSO).................................................................. 190
Chapter XII. Struts Framework........................................................ 192
Struts in Web Service Endpoint.................................................... 192
Struts in Portal Development........................................................ 195
Chapter XIII. Writing Portlets: A Quick Lesson for
IT Managers...................................................................................... 196
Chapter XIV. Brief Overview Portal Application Platforms ........... 206
WebSphere Portal for Multiplatforms 5........................................ 206
Apache Portal Tools and Server .................................................. 207
Sun ONE Portal Server............................................................... 208
Portal Development with Struts.................................................... 211
Chapter XV. Installation and Maintenance Costs........................... 216
Chapter XVI. Standards Overview................................................... 219
Portlet Specification JSR 168....................................................... 220
Portlet Relationship with Servlet Specification............................... 222
Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP)................................. 226
Chapter XVII. Managing Portals ..................................................... 237
FAQ ........................................................................................... 237
Future Trends.............................................................................. 244
Section IV: Grids as Virtual Organizations
Chapter XVIII. Grids ........................................................................ 247
Grid Goals................................................................................... 247
Grid Resources............................................................................ 251
Grid Architectures: Physical and Logical....................................... 254
What is a Grid Network?............................................................. 255
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OGSA: Web Services as a Grid Platform..................................... 261
OGSA, OGSI, and WSRF: From GT3 to GT4............................ 268
Building Grid Solutions................................................................. 301
Feasibility.................................................................................... 306
References......................................................................................... 309
Glossary............................................................................................. 317
Acronyms ........................................................................................... 324
About the Authors.............................................................................. 328
Index................................................................................................... 330
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An enormous amount of material dealing with the Web and Web Services is
available in books, online, and in various publications. Anybody interested in
learning can find the material but suffers from the overload of information.
Which information is important, up-to-date, and correct? How can I find in-
formation that constitutes the background for the problem facing me? Is the
information relevant, up to date, and reliable? Can I simply apply what the
published references recommended?
Inspired by similar questions, we decided to put together a systematic review
of current Web technology and trends to meet two goals:
1. Provide information to people who need general, rather than in depth,
technical knowledge such as information technology (IT) development
mangers, software designers, architects, IT students, and project and
program managers. Our ideal reader is technically inclined, with broad
interests and management responsibilities.
2. Describe the logical development of business applications technology,
from client-server to Web, Web Services, Portal, and computer Grids.
The book is practically oriented; it gives a large amount of industry focused
advice and down-to-earth observations. The reader will probably need to
seek more detailed information in specialized books, but he or she will be able
to maneuver in the sea of available information.
It is not necessary to read the book sequentially, but there are advantages in
doing so as the topics build on previously discussed topics.
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Most importantly, acronyms and glossary terms are explained at the end of
the text. Terms that we consider important are listed in the Index.
The reader should be familiar with the basics of current information technol-
ogy, the fundamentals of Web architecture, and introductory Java. It is pos-
sible to understand the ideas without understanding the Java examples that
appear in the text. We rely heavily on the XML concepts, and we envisage
that the reader will consult the Web for additional information when reading
this book.
We found many definitions and principles on the Web, and, where possible,
we quote the source for the reader. Published Request for Information (RFC)
material is used extensively throughout the book.
Some information will become obsolete with time, as many suggestions and
design principles refer to the current industrial strength implementations. Many
examples and practical observations refer to IBM WebSphere as the authors
have experience with the product. We encourage readers to critically evaluate
some of our more controversial advice.
Promises and Expectations of
Client-Server Computing
The promise of reduced complexity of software and of software development
in the third and fourth generation of computers has simply not eventuated. The
catch phrase of the client-server paradigm was the promise to reduce the
complexity of the software by dividing electronic processing into a smaller
portion performed on a client computer and a larger portion performed on a
server. This way, the client (the computer, not the person) specializes in front
end processing, leaving the logic to the backend server processing. This sepa-
ration of duties was supposed to achieve what we call today the separation of
concerns. The client interacted with the user and provided data validation,
while the server processed the data and returned the result, often by connect-
ing to a database. The idea of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) was born,
and it was firmly allocated to the client. Nearly immediately, the user interface
became much more sophisticated, filling the vacated space with GUI API’s,
event processing, and user interface standards. Thus, GUI processing grew
into a specialized and complex area, demanding high skills and development
costs.
Programming languages such as Visual Basic were able to produce function-
ally rich user interfaces with graphics, which the user more easily interpreted.
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Previously unseen visual objects, such as tabs, pop up windows, buttons with
graphical depiction or symbols of their function, and colorful navigational
prompts filled the user’s view.
On the server side, additional functionality also filled the void: generalized
database connectors; lightweight processes called threads (which introduced
additional complexity for synchronization); support for a large variety of de-
vices and protocols; and ever-increasingly complex logic.
The development process for client-server applications did not become sim-
pler either. The two subsystems were often developed in two or more differ-
ent programming environments. For example, it was very common to develop
client software in Visual Basic or Delphi, while the server software was devel-
oped in C or C++ (or both). The previously cohesive development team was
broken into client and server specialists. The functional testing introduced a
new, expensive, and difficult discipline: integration testing, where the client
and server were seen in cooperation for the first time. Finding errors, bugs,
and functional irregularities became complex and very expensive, as several
specialists had to cooperate to resolve the problems.
The initial promise of reduced complexity was broken. The development man-
agers were dealing with increased costs and were looking for a solution that
would address the increased number of development personnel, ballooning
testing and deployment costs. The developers were faced with a specializa-
tion dilemma — should I become a client or a server specialist? It should be
remembered that the client specialist was also the user interface specialist,
being responsible for the design of the user interface and its behavior. At the
same time, the end users became accustomed to better usability and demanded
ever-improving quality of the user interface, intuitive behavior, and sophisti-
cated error management, where it should not matter whether the validation
errors originated from the server or client processing.
The World of the Web
While client-server computing was evolving, the world of the Web was quietly
assessing its strength. This occurred in 1989-1990. An interested reader can
see one of the early Web sites on http://www.w3.org/History.html or http://
www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb.html, or read about it in
Weaving the Web by Tim Berners-Lee with Mark Fischetti (Berners-Lee &
Fischetti, 1999).