IBM Portal Database and Authentication - portlet

I have a couple of questions regarding IBM Portal Portlets.
I have just stumbled into the realm of Portlets - and as far as I am concerned was dropped into the deep end. Having to work on a IBM WebSphere Portal 6.1
We are still in the evaluation stage - and three things that I haven't been able to find clear answers to yet.
Database - is there one single Database that also gets used by the installed Portlets - or do you configure DB individually on a per Portlet Basis?
Authorization and Authentication - how can a Portlet get hold of the User and the rights the user has?
Are there any known constraints in using JSR-301 compliant JSF Bridges instead of bog standard Portlets?
Thanks in advanced.

I haven't used Portal 7 yet, but I have used pretty much every other version, so my apologies if you are using 7 and this information doesn't fit exactly.
1) Database: when you install portal, you configure a database it uses to store portal configuration (and sometimes user rights as well, although this aspect can be set up using a custom user registry like LDAP). If you don't have an already dedicated DB, Portal will use its packaged DB, Cloudscape/Derby. This DB can be completely separate from the DB that the portlets use to manipulate data unrelated to configuration. E.g. if your portlet is displaying inventory for a bike shop, the DB holding that info can be accessed in the normal web application way through a datasource set up in the WAS GUI.
2) For a lot of scenarios, your portlet doesn't need to know the user's rights, it won't render the portlet unless the user has been assigned the correct rights via Portal Administration. But in the cases in which you would need to know the user's rights, they can be accessed via the Portal User Management Architecture. Here's a good whitepaper on the subject: http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/dw/websphere/PUMA_scenarios.pdf
3) Known constraints? You may have to google for that specifically, but I will say that unless you use IBM's custom JSF bridge, there may not be a lot of support from IBM's technical issue team if you come up against a problem. However, the support guys are usually pretty helpful, I find. Don't let that stop you from trying though :)
The two resources that I use pretty exhaustively are the InfoCenter http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wpdoc/v6r1/index.jsp and the developer forums on IBM Developerworks.
Best of luck, and welcome to the dark side!

Related

Finding, and deleting, a rogue Application Insights Web Test

I have a quite extensive application running under Azure.
As part of the operational management of the application, I have a set of Application Insight instances to provide monitoring, tracking and logging.
The overall application consists of three ASP.NET MVC websites and a Worker Role. Additionally, I have three instances ("environments") of the application overall deployed (QA, UAT and Production).
I noticed a while back that for one of the App Insight instances (for the same MVC website across all environments) it was quite heavy on the number of Dependency data points that is being collected. Specifically, this is causing me to exceed the 5 million data points included in the monthly quota.
Noting this, I changed the Web Tests (for availability) to hit a different endpoint (one that doesn't invoke the dependencies).
However, I am still seeing the old endpoint being hit.
Digging a little further into this, I believe that I have an old rogue Web Test that is still active, and still hitting the old endpoint.
Issue is - I can't find it.
Is there a way to query, even if via the Powershell Cmdlets, the subscription in an attempt to find this? I've trawled through the portal and cannot see it anywhere.
Could this be the "Proactive Detection" feature? If so, can you change the endpoint it monitors?
You should definitely open a support ticket with us. Check out the dev support options and look at either option 3 or 4. It's preferred you open a support ticket via Azure with a support plan (option 3) if you have one. But, if you don't have a support plan check out option 4 and you can get in contact with us that way.

Online app backend with client-friendly online CMS

There are a ton of online CMS services out there. And a ton of (new) backend-as-a-service products too. But I can't seem to find what I am looking for.
I am building an app for a client. The app contains data about shops, products, and more. The client must be able to update this data (and not just one person: each shop manager needs to be able to log in and edit the data for their own shop). And of course the app must be able to access this data.
Client edits data online
This has to be extremely user-friendly and completely online. I don't want to sell my client something where they need to install stuff on their server. I don't want to sell them something that's accessible online but looks like phpMyAdmin.
I want a shop owner to be able to go to a webpage, log in, and then see a pretty UI where they can edit the data for their shop. The back-end needs to have a pretty front-end that's auto-generated for whatever data this particular shop owner is allowed to edit.
So there are two bits: storing data in the cloud in such a way that it can be accessed by the app (which I am building with Titanium), and allowing the client to log into the backend and edit the data in a non-tech, user-friendly way.
Here's a list of things I tried...
Backend-as-a-service
Services with a great back-end, but without easy auto-generated data editing website:
Appcelerator (Titanium) Cloud Service
Amazon EC2
Stackmob
BackBeam
WebVanta
Parse
API o Mat
ShepHertz Cloud42
Kii
Online CMS
Services that provide a nice way for clients to edit data, but no easy way for apps to connect:
CloudCMS
(and many others I'm sure)
It's insane that no-one seems to be providing the cross-breed of BaaS and online CMS. So many people are building apps for clients, and so many clients are not tech-savvy and are reluctant to get a special server and host database software they don't understand. Why does this not exist? What am I missing?
With apiOmat it's easy to create your own data-editing app for e.g. with JavaScript SDK and HTML. Or you send a feature request so that they build a module for your preferred CMS.
As you mentioned, Cloud CMS is a really good option (disclaimer: I'm one of the founders). The product provides an enterprise content management backend and an API that lets you plug in some really powerful features right into your mobile apps.
This month, we released a brand new user interface which provides much of what you're asking about. Instant forms, document libraries, search and workflow all in one place.
You can check out Cloud CMS here: http://www.cloudcms.com
I completely agree with your assessment particularly with respect to the last mile (getting the final app built). It's kind of the wild west out there and the strong technologies are still proving out.
You mentioned Titanium - that's a good choice. I also quite like the Ionic Framework (http://www.drifty.com/). It's a step in the right direction.

Single sign on solution

Hi I am using CAS for SSO. But problem is that i want reset password,register new user on CAS login screen.Does CAS provide these services or i have to implement?
Or Any other SSO solution exist which fulfill my requirement.
CAS is just a SSO frontend to your existing identity management solution (database, LDAP etc). It does not include any identity management features itself (create user account, reset password etc). I have recently been using the Cloudseal platform which is a full identity management solution and so far I am pretty impressed. I believe Atlassians Crowd also includes this although I have not used it. There are probably other products out there as well.
Both of these are commercial products although they are both free for the first 50 users. Crowd is a traditional standalone platform which you download, install and configure but Cloudseal is a hosted service so there is no installation and less config.
You can certainly modify the spring weblog and login page to allow for the functionality that of course you'd have to implement. You should also ask the question on #cas-user mailing list to see if a similar need in the community has been implemented by other users which you may be able to take advantage of. I remember only recently someone raised the same question to the list and there was a bit of interest in getting this feature developed and integrated. You may want to revisit the topic on the mailing list.
Hope this helps.

Suggestions needed for replacement of Oracle SSO 10g in an 11g environment

We're currently using the SSO component of Oracle 10g App Server to authenticate users on our external / internet facing client "portal" (think similar to online banking)
SSO uses Oracle Internet Directory to store it's data, and we've been able to use PL/SQL and Java to access and modify the data held in OID (e.g create/drop users, change/verify passwords etc)
With the advent of 11g, Oracle appears to have "orphaned" SSO… it is available, but only as an add-on, and it appears to have been superseded by Oracle Access Manager. I'm guessing that it will have been dropped together by 12g. Plus it looks pretty difficult to install and get running correctly.
So, I'm wondering if anyone has any experience of having had the same migration problem as us? If so, what did you do?
Alternatively, does anyone have any experience of doing something similar using Oracle Access Manager? Do you think it will do what we want?
Or is there a better road to go down? Is there something else I should be considering?
Sorry for the very broad question, but it's one of those situations where a person's experience of what does + doesn’t work can make an enormous difference to us making some progress in a timely fashion. Thanks.
From my knowledge, Oracle Internet Directory (OID) is an LDAP compliant directory whereas Oracle Access Manager (OAM) is much more complex and consists of two main systems:
Identity System (users, groups,
workflows)
Access System (single/multi domain
SSO solution for Web and non-Web
based applications).
Access Manager relies on an Identity Server which is a stand-alone server process that communicates with any Directory Server (AD, OID, Sun Directory server..).
So you can use the new OAM and link it with your existing OID... to retrieve users/groups and metadata. All that you could do with OID will be doable with OAM as it brings more abstraction layers.
But in my opinion, and considering your case, directly accessing LDAP servers (OID, AD, etc) and using a light and "home made" SSO system is cheaper than relying on those big systems.... I think OAM is a usefull solution when you have lots of heterogeneous applications (web, non web, mobile, ...) and/or multiple organizations/domains with links and/or you need a very scalable approach.

Help to choose Alfresco or Nuxeo for DMS

I have requirement to develop DMS(Document Managemen System) with some initial requirements:
If possible DMS should be open source
Initially DMS should support up to 500 users
System should be scalable in sence od users or content
Docuemtns/Content should be stored on a file system
Document should be able to be marked for later destruction
Mandatory to have workflow capabilities
Mandatory to have version control capability
Nice to have SSO(Single Sign On) with Liferay portal
Nice to have posibility to expose some of funccionality via portlets in Liferay
Document management should be done via the web interface
Nice to have shared drive capability
Nice to have events and notifications about add/change content
At the moment I am in doubth to choose between Alfresco and Nuxeo.
I will appreciate any help to choose between them.
Thanks in advance
I have not much experience with Nuxeo, but here is for Alfresco:
1.If possible DMS should be open source
Yes.
2.Initially DMS should support up to 500 users
Yes, if you have a good server.
3.System should be scalable in sence od users or content
Yes.
4.Docuemtns/Content should be stored on a file system
Yes. Only metadata is stored in a database.
5.Document should be able to be marked for later destruction
The free Records Management module has retention capabilities.
6.Mandatory to have workflow capabilities
Yes.
7.Mandatory to have version control capability
Yes.
8.Nice to have SSO(Single Sign On) with Liferay portal
Yes.
9.Nice to have posibility to expose some of funccionality via portlets in Liferay
Alfresco and Liferay work very well together.
10.Document management should be done via the web interface
Yes.
11.Nice to have shared drive capability
Yes.
12.Nice to have events and notifications about add/change content
Not sure about this one. The Share module has this feature, but not sure about the main DM application.
Don't know the Nuxeo system, but we are using Alfresco as a document storage and session server. We have our own GUI and only use it as a back-end system. So far we had no problems. Plus Alfresco has a nice REST interface which makes it easy to integrate into any existing system.