Portals – Technical Aspects Rajan Bhardvaj ( The World Bank 30 November 2005

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 2 Questions Posed  Technology Aspects (including choice of platform, examples of specific software used)  Portal architecture Description of specific functionalities provided by the portal Interaction between central portal and agency portals Interaction between central portal and local government portals Integration of authentication systems (PKI, Single-Sign-On etc) Integration of payment systems (organizational and technical aspects) Which other functionalities are provided by the central portal (e.g. content management, search, personalization)

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 3 What is a portal? A User Perspective At least three definitions  One place stop to get many services and information about a topic or area  A starting point or gateway to other resources Characteristics  Personalized space Types  General portal e.g. yahoo  Specialized portal e.g. purchasing portal Is amazon.com a portal?

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 4 Key Points (User Perspective) 1. Unified information architecture  Hierarchy and organization of information  Allows for a good frame of reference  Think library and classification of books 2. A single user identity  Across a portal, the user should be able to use a single identity and password 3. Consistency of behavior and look and feel

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 5 Portal vs. Portal Software Different perspectives:  Portal as seen by user  Portals can be built using many tools and technologies including open source Yahoo, Google and many others are built on open technologies Many typically do not use ‘portal product’ per se  Portals can be built using dedicated ‘Portal Products’ as well  More later..

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 6 Federation of Portals Even from an information architecture perspective, a single portal may be just ‘too big’ Architecture may support a federation of portals:  At least one entry point that provides a directory and some services  A set of sub-portals that provide specific services or information

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 7 Federation Example Audience Segmented  Individual vs. Business vs. Employee Geographically Distributed  Country -> States -> City Topically Distributed  General Health Taxes … Combination  Geographical and topical Many other combinations as well

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 8 What would the portal do? Examples:  Directory of resources and links  Information and knowledge Agriculture best practices? Forms – Downloads/Submission?  E-Business Taxes due account statement File taxes electronically Obtain no-object certificates …

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 9 Examples – US Government Portal

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 10 Before Technology Selection DO develop requirements first PROCESS matters – how and who get content in and how PILOT Depending on the budget and scale  DO a pilot project focused on functionality  Start small if possible and iterate through the technical infrastructure (i.e. be prepared to throw out first release)

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 11 Identity Management A very critical element to make or break a portal Who are you? Need to identify users e.g. US has social security  Does the audience have a unique id? THIS IS NOT A TECHNOLOGY PROBLEM Process for issuing and managing id’s and password needs to be setup

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 12 Performance Manage scale.  # of users Are you scaling to thousands, millions, 10’s of millions of users?  Traffic  Static content vs. dynamic content (from a database or other system) Different needs may indicate different approaches

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 13 What Platform? Questions:  Buy vs. Build  Open Source vs. Commercial  Unix/Linux/Java vs. Windows/Microsoft  ….

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 14 Product vs. Build Why Product? Usual reasons:  Time to market  Capability  Reliability  Process and methodologies Why Build?  Can meet YOUR requirements  May have some cost savings (note May) May need both anyway. Generally, product preferred where feasible

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 15 Open Source vs. Commercial Software Open source is perfectly suitable for many,many cases – Google and Yahoo run on open source. Can include end products or middleware  Middleware – Apache Tomcat, jBoss, Ruby or Rails… and many others  EndProducts – Plone, Alfresco, LifeRay… Commercial software may be needed for many cases  Integrating with back ends  Out of the box solution  Reliability and Support

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 16 Unix/Linux/Java vs. Windows/Microsoft Issue on two fronts:  What operating system? (Windows vs. Unix)  What middleware stack? Java vs..net or other such as PHP/Ruby… Generally, more of a religious issue than anything else Generally speaking, Linux/Java + Scripting seems to have a little more momentum

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 17 Portal – Implementation Approach Define requirements, information architecture and look and feel  Ensure ‘business’ and not technical ownership  But, keep it cross-functional and user focused Define Success Factors Keep it simple  pick a couple of segments (citizen and small business for instance)  Stay away from personalization  Stay low tech Iterate  Have an deliverable every six months with the first release possibly taking a little more  Have a feedback system and get usage statistic

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 18 What Not To Do DO NOT: Focus on technology only  Portals are not about technology !!  Implementation teams can get carried away by ‘cool’ features; users usually want simple things Have long delivery cycles  Setup 6 month releases and keep to that  DO ensure QUICK wins Ignore process  Getting governance, agreements, processes can take a LONG time

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 19 World Bank Example Most Popular  External – News, Projects Database, Research  Internal - People Search and Projects  About 10% of sites get 80% of traffic What we did not do well  Community Model Sites are informational but do not connect people  Somewhat supply driven rather than demand driven  Search - improved marginally with a ‘low-tech’ appliance solution  Generally, took too long

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 20 Q. Portal Functionality Refer to definition of portal Building a portal typically needs:  Application server / platform  Search engine  Content Management  Collaboration/Communities Discussion, blogs etc.  Integration capabilities Web services or others

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 21 Q. Interaction Between Portals Interaction between the central, agency and local government portals needs further investigation Important to focus on user behaviors and expectation and not on silos  But, breaking of silos often difficult to do & can lead to ownership issues  Important to show agency or local government leadership No simple answers

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 22 Q. Authentication, Single Sign On … Do have a single user identity (like social security in the US) Preferable have a single userid/password Single Sign on really may not matter that much PKI is complex to implement  Consider leaving to latter phases or implementing only where security needs are paramount

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 23 Q. Payment Systems… Needs Discussion

30 Nov Rajan Bhardvaj Portal Technology - World Bank 24 Q & A