uPortal and CHEF Charles Severance University of Michigan

What is CHEF? Application development framework –Like a portal – Gadgets, flexible, reconfigurable, personalizable –Like an application – tool set is consistent and interwoven Applications – “Collaborative” –Course Management System – CourseTools –Research Group Collaboration – WorkTools / NEESGrid

CTNG/NeesGrid Screenshots

Portal Engine: Jetspeed Velocity CHEF Teamlets: Written in JAVA Responsible for GUI Operate in the context of a session. Rely on services for any persistent or “cross-user” information. Services Persistent System-wide Multiple implementations of services Configurable as to what implementation provides what service Servlets: Access services outside of the portal engine: AccessServlet and WebDavServlet Services API CHEF Architecture Web Server: Tomcat Turbine Non-HTTP Components (i.e. )

Similarities Hierarchical Presentation / Aggregated Content Fine grained authentication/authorization Helper Notion

Differences Jetspeed framework Velocity Markup Language at the core CHEF –is both an application framework and an application (a set of coordinated tools) –is not a myUMich portal Services notion formalized uPortal uses CARs – Chef uses modules (source-bases)

Go Forward Jetspeed will be evolving to something based on WSRP and JSR-168 Want to take advantage of the following uPortal thrusts –Aggregated Content –XML at the core –WSRP and JSR-168 implementations Want to add to the uPortal thinking –Notion of Services –Super-duper-channel –CAR – and then Super-CAR

What is a Service Long-term lifecycle One instance –Must be aware that multiple users can use service –Can use memory resident information Pluggable implementations –Memory version –XML implementation –Web services implementation –Database implementation

Service Implementations Teamlet Service API “Generic” Service COmponent Portal Engine Service Component Service Component The API is an Interface which defines how we talk to a “Generic” service – There can be any number of different service implementations which implement the Interface. Service Cover

Services in Jetspeed / Turbine Teamlet Generic API Turbine Service Component Turbine Service Broker chef.properties Portal Engine The chef.properties file associates a particular service implementation with its service API at run-time. The cover uses Turbine to find the service at runtime. The Teamlet has no dependence on Turbine. Turbine Cover Turbine Aware

Desired Goal State Teamlet Generic API Generic Service Component Xyz Service Broker Xyz Config Portal Engine Generic Cover Xyz Aware Would like to find a standard API to/from a service broker so that we don’t have to develop a cover and service component for each broker.

The Super-Car File Standardization for interchange of two types of packaged components –User Interface Multiple presentation components –Service Service Package Portal Service Component Blah User Interface Package User Interface Component WML Component Swing Component HTML Component

Assembling a Portal A portal will require a standardized hosting environment for both User Interface and Portal Service packages Standardized Hosting Framework Service BrokerGUI Framework Service UIWML SwingHTML UIWML SwingHTML UIWML SwingHTML Service

Portal At Run Time The hosting framework provides services to all of the components –User Interface –Presentation –Service The components are connected using standardized APIs as appropriate by the hosting framework Standardized Hosting Framework Service Broker Portal Service Component GUI Framework User Interface Component HTML Component WML Component

Presentation and Framework Because of lack of standards, consensus, and experience in the space, we cannot standardize on portal and presentation approach at this time –Jetspeed –GridSphere –Java Desktop Applications –JSP –Perl –Command Line Interface Each approach has strengths and weaknesses Standardized Hosting Framework Service Broker Portal Service Component GUI Framework User Interface Component Presentation Component

HTML Framework Broker Service GUI UIHTML WML Future State Standardize full scope of hosting framework Packages usable in multiple environments SWING Framework Broker Service GUI UISWING Service UIWML SwingHTML

Schedule [To be determined later]

The Secret Plan for Total World Domination uPortal and CHEF steal best practice from each other and begin to align future efforts –Services / Super-GUI / Super-CAR Once we have services defined – make reference OKI service and OKI tools – deploy LOTS of places –uPortal, Jetspeed 1.4, Jetspeed 2.0, JSR-168, WSRP, (and Swing)