1. Portal Technology Feasibility Study Kangaroo Software Jon Ferry Chris Helmeset Greg McGraw Jonathan Peffer

2. Agenda ► Introduction ► Motivation ► Objectives ► Process and Planning ► Findings ► Deliverables ► Reflection ► Conclusion

3. Introduction ► Sponsor  Excellus BlueCross BlueShield  Mike Cardillo, Robert D’Alimonte, Chris Ryan ► Customer Liaison  Dr. Jeff Lasky ► Faculty Coaches  Dr. Swaminathan Natarajan  Dr. J Fernando Naveda

4. Motivation ► Excellus BlueCross BlueShield  450 CSRs answer 30,000 calls daily  Example ► TIGRESS  Visual Basic 6  Mainframe Core  Legacy Software ► Need for Modular Design ► Adaptability

5. Motivation Cont. ► jTIGRESS  JAVA based solution  Modular Approach ► User Interface ► Objects ► Heterogeneous Systems and Databases ► Our Scope  Presentation Layer of jTIGRESS  Provide a Proof-of-Concept of IBM WebSphere Portal Technology  Findings Feed into New Architecture

6. Objectives (Requirements) ► Is Portal technology a feasible solution for the proposed jTIGRESS application? ► Phase 1 (Winter Quarter)  Familiarity with WebSphere  Discover Feasibility of inter-Portlet Communication

7. Objectives Cont. ► Phase 2 (Spring Quarter)  Application Design ► Inter-Portlet Communication capabilities and limitations  Enterprise-Wide Authentication ► Single Sign-On (SSO) ► Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)  Family of Portlets  Interface Design

8. Phase 1 Process ► Software/Hardware Configuration  WebSphere Portal Server  WebSphere Application Server  WebSphere Application Developer  WebSphere Portal Toolkit ► Technology Research  JAVA Portal Standard (JSR168)  WebSphere Portal Development ► Documentation ► Prototype  Inter-Portlet Communication

9. Phase 2 Process ► Agile Methodology  Prototyping Lifecycle Model (3 iterations)  Emphasis on Feedback

10. Planning

11. Findings

12. Project Status Familiarity with WebSphere and Portlets Familiarity with WebSphere and Portlets Application Design Application Design  Inter-Portlet Communication  Database Connectivity Enterprise-Wide Authentication Enterprise-Wide Authentication  Single Sign-On (SSO)  Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Interface Design – Customization Interface Design – Customization  Basic layout aspects Family of Portlets – Personalization Family of Portlets – Personalization

13. Portal Technology ► What are Portals?  Presentation Layer to Info Systems  Contains Portlets ► What are Portlets?  “Pluggable” Components  Modes  States

14. Portal Architecture ► J2EE Application Design ► Portlet Application Design

15. Inter-Portlet Communication ► Types of Portlets:  Portlets that do not communicate  Source Portlets  Target Portlets  Hybrid Portlets

16. One Way Communication

17. Two Way Communication

18. Personalization ► Personalization provides the ability to restrict content displayed within portlets ► Types  User Profile-Based  Rules-Based  Collaborative Filtering ► Used to achieve Family of Portlets

19. Rules Personalization ► Classifiers ► Actions ► Binding

20. Customization ► Support multiple user configurations  Internet Explorer and Netscape, as well as supporting localization issues ► Look and Feel  Themes and Skins  Pages and Portlets

21. Themes

22. Skins

23. Single Sign-On (SSO) ► What is SSO?  SSO technology provides the capability for a user to authenticate once while simultaneously gaining access to multiple secure applications. ► WebSphere Models of Authentication  Web SSO  Extended SSO

24. Web SSO ► Centralized Authentication Model  Once authenticated to the first application you are authenticated to all ► Web SSO allows a user to log-in to one application, the application then generates a token with the aid of some LTPA authentication proxy.

25. Extended SSO ► User Level Authentication  Secrets stored at user level across Portlets ► System Level Authentication  Secrets shared across all users ► Setting this up is a complex task that involves possibly modifying the applications which require SSO access.

26. Credential Vault ► The Vault is broken into Vault Segments  Vault Segments are broken into Vault Slots  Vault Slots contain a Credential Object

27. LDAP ► Types of Connection:  Unsecured  Secured (extension using SSL) ► Supports:  IBM Directory Server, IBM Secure Way for IBM Directory Server, iPlanet Directory Server, MS Active Directory, Lotus Domino ► Other LDAP directories can be used

28. Deliverables ► Primary Deliverable  Portlet Technology Research Report  Excellus Workshop ► Supplemental Deliverables  Prototypes (w/ source code)

29. Reflections

30. What Worked Well? ► Adapted to R&D Style Project ► Process Selection ► Client Iteration  Timely Feedback  Effective Feedback ► Well Defined Scope  Objectives  Challenging

31. What Didn’t Work Well? ► WebSphere Installation and Configuration ► WebSphere Documentation  Hard to Find ► Version Mismatch ► Tutorials  …Leads to Trial and Error ► Ramp-up Times  Domain Knowledge Requirements  Phase 2 Elicitation

32. Areas for Improvement ► Written Objectives for Phase 1 ► Internal Reviews  Research  Prototypes  Documentation

33. Acknowledgements ► Excellus Staff ► Customer Liaison  Dr. Jeff Lasky ► Software Engineering Faculty  Dr. Swaminathan Natarajan  Kurt Mosiejczuk  All other RIT Faculty/Staff

34. Conclusion ► Introduction ► Motivation ► Objectives ► Process and Planning ► Findings ► Deliverables ► Reflection ► Questions?