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November 12, 2001

Portal Assimilation

Hidden in the application server lies a conservative portal option

By Colin White

Continued from Page 1

Web database applications consist of components such as menus, forms, charts, and reports you use primarily to manage and access Oracle database data from the Web environment. You can use these components individually or connect them together to form a complete Web application. Component and application definitions are stored in the portal Oracle database. User-access security is managed at the database schema, application, and component level.

The Web database application facility doesn't presently support more powerful Oracle business intelligence tools such as Oracle9iAS Reports or Discoverer - but Oracle intends to change this fact.

Three-Tier Architecture

The Oracle portal is implemented as a three-tier architecture consisting of a Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser, middle-tier Oracle9iAS, and back-end Oracle8i Standard or Enterprise Edition database server. All Oracle portal definitions and content areas are stored in the back-end Oracle database server, which is known as a portal "node." You can use multiple nodes to improve performance. Note that for mobile and wireless users, Oracle provides a wireless option for Oracle9iAS that you can use as a portal-to-business content, but this feature is not yet integrated into the Oracle portal framework.

The middle-tier Oracle9iAS contains an Apache HTTP server that includes a built-in PL/SQL dispatcher to translate HTTP requests into calls to the portal database. The application server uses a parallel engine to assemble portal pages and issue requests in parallel to business content providers. The server can cache portlets in a file system for improved performance. You can use multiple application servers to scale up for high demand.

Oracle 9iAS includes a login server for user authentication and management and to provide several options for supporting a single sign-on capability to business content that may be dispersed across multiple back-end systems. This login server can optionally use the services of an external LDAP-compliant directory such as the Oracle Internet Directory.

Third-Party Apps Unmonitored

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A portal by definition must support interfaces to a variety of different business content sources, and Oracle has put in place a Portal Partner Initiative to encourage third-party software vendors to develop portlets for the Oracle9iAS portal framework. Several vendors have joined this initiative, including AltaVista, Business Objects SA, Cognos Inc., Inktomi Corp., Northern Light Technology Inc., and Verity Inc. You can find details of these third-party solutions in the portal catalog on the Oracle Technology Network Web site. Like most other portal vendors, Oracle assumes that third-party vendors have thoroughly tested the quality, compatibility, stability, or performance of their portlets published in the portal catalog.

Mature Vendor, Less Mature Product

Organizations choosing portal products today have the choice of buying high-function products from small software companies (many of which are likely to fail or be acquired), or less mature products from larger and thus more viable software vendors. The portal framework in Oracle9iAS falls into this latter category. For organizations that buy into Oracle's single-vendor marketing strategy, the portal framework in Oracle9iAS is a suitable solution for building a scalable internal corporate or e-business portal. It is missing several facilities present in more mature products, such as automated categorization, rules-driven notification, collaboration tools, and interfaces to third-party application packages. As such, it is best suited to handling Internet and intranet Web content and Oracle database applications.

Colin White [cwhite@databaseassociates.com] is president of DataBase Associates International and conference chairperson of the DCI Corporate and E-Business Portals conference.

RESOURCES

Related Articles at IntelligentEnterprise.com:

"The Portal Collective," March 8, 2001

"Custom Fit," March 8, 2001