Evolution of Enterprise Information Portals
Explore the concept of Enterprise Information Portals, their challenges, advantages, and architecture evolution. Learn about portal server architecture, personalization, and the journey towards efficient data management.
Evolution of Enterprise Information Portals
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Presentation Transcript
Portals IST 421 Spring 2004 Lecture 3
Enterprise Information Portals • Portals – doorway to a focused set of resources either internal or external • Targeted for a specific audience • Employees, customers, suppliers • Serve as a single coherent view of information aggregated from different sources
Enterprise Information Portals • Back Office Systems - ERP, financials, human resources, engineering, process automation/workflow, project management • Front Office Systems – sales force automation, customer relationship management, help desk, marketing automation • Personal Productivity Systems – word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, contact manager, personal information manager
Enterprise Information Challenges • Managed data • Legacy systems, proprietary systems • Disconnected islands of automation • Unmanaged data • Ad-hoc productivity tools • Chaotic access and exchange • Restricted publication rights
Enterprise Information Portals • A system to manage access to information • Adopt a standard for transmitting and representing data using XML • Content must be abstract and kept separate from rendition • Rendition – the file format that contains the actual data and the description of the format
Enterprise Information Portals • Primary advantage is that there is no need to integrate systems directly between companies or within trading communities • Connect to each system through a point of integration • User interface, database, application server
Enterprise Information Portals • Today, more information flows through user interfaces than automatically through back-end integration
Portal Advantages • Supports a noninvasive approach • Faster to implement than real-time information exchange • Technology is mature with many portal-oriented applications to learn from
Portal Disadvantages • Information does not flow in real time • Requires human interaction • Information must be abstracted through another application logic layer – complexity issue • Security is a concern when data is being extended to users over the Web
Portal Evolution • Single-System Portals • Single enterprise systems that have their user interfaces extended to the Web • Multiple Enterprise System Portals • Multiple enterprise systems information is funneled through a single Web-enabled application
Portal Evolution • Trading Community Portals • Multiple enterprise system portal is extended to include systems within many companies – trading community portal or digital exchange
Portal Architecture • Made up of components: • Web clients • Web servers • Database servers • Back-end applications • Application servers
Portal Server Architecture From The XML Handbook by Goldfarb and Prescod, Prentice Hall PTR, 2001.
Portal Architecture • Web Clients – any device able to run a Web browser and display HTML and graphics • PC, PDA’s, cell phones • Web Servers – file servers able to convert information into HTML and deliver to a Web browser using HTTP
Portal Architecture • Database Servers – work as a traditional client/server architecture • Back-End Applications – mix of applications such as SAP, custom applications, client/server applications • Portals gather appropriate information from these systems and present it to the user interface
Portal Architecture • Application Servers – provide a middle layer between the back-end applications, databases, and the Web server.
Portal Servers • Three requirements for portal servers: • Performance: reliability, availability, scalability • Content distribution to PC’s, thin clients, mobile devices such as phones and PDA’s; personalization • Business process integration
Portal Server Architecture • Personalization • Content delivery agents (CDA) is a program or script that creates a window for providing a data source • Each user is assigned a “role” which specifies a collection of pages, CDS’s, and a default theme • User may change the layout of any page, change the color and background images of the desktop