What is Portal

A portal is a web based application that –commonly- provides personalization, authentication, content aggregation from different sources and hosts the presentation layer of information systems. Aggregation is the action of integrating content from different sources within a web page. Portal pages may have different set of portlets creating content for different users.

Portals can serve an enterprise in a variety of ways.

A portal is generally defined as a software platform for building websites and web applications. Modern portals have added multiple features that make them the best choice for a wide array of web applications. Some common uses for a portal include:

1.  Build Gadgets, Portlets, Pages, Themes, Navigation and Websites

2.  Anonymous Pages and Authenticated Pages

3.  Role-Based Content Delivery

4.  Community Pages

5.  Multiple Languages, Multiple Platforms

Liferay Overview

“It’s an open source enterprise portal solution using in latest java and web 2.0 technologies, which is built in Content Management system (CMS) & Collaboration Environment”

CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CMS): is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment

è    What is Liferay Portal?

·     Liferay Portal is the world's leading open source enterprise portal solution using the latest in Java and Web 2.0 technologies.

·     Runs on all major application servers & servlet containers, databases, and operating systems with over 700 deployment combinations

·     JSR 168 and JSR 286 compliant

·     Out-of-the-box usability with over 60 portlets pre-bundled

·     Built-in Content Management System (CMS)

·     Built-in Collaboration suite

·     Personalized pages for all users 

·     Hot-Deployable Theme/Portlet Architecture with Online Software Catalog

·     Freeform / WebOS layout .

·     Just-in-time Portlet rendering

·     Fine-grained permissions system

è    What is a portlet?

·      A portlet is a web component that processes requests and generates dynamic content.

·     The content generated by a portlet is also called a fragment (e.g. HTML, XHTML, WML) and can be aggregated with other fragments to form a complete document.

·     Portlets as fragments of an HTML page:

A portlet is an application that provides a specific piece of content (information or service) to be included as part of a portal page. It is managed by a portlet container, that processes requests and generates dynamic content. Portlets are used by portals as pluggable user interface components that provide a presentation layer to information systems.

The content generated by a portlet is also called a fragment. A fragment is a piece of markup (e.g. HTML, XHTML, WML) adhering to certain rules and can be aggregated with other fragments to form a complete document. The content of a portlet is normally aggregated with the content of other portlets to form the portal page. The lifecycle of a portlet is managed by the portlet container.

Web clients interact with portlets via a request/response paradigm implemented by the portal. Normally, users interact with content produced by portlets, for example by following links or submitting forms, resulting in portlet actions being received by the portal, which are forwarded by it to the portlets targeted by the user's interactions.

The content generated by a portlet may vary from one user to another depending on the user configuration for the portlet.

This specification will deal with Portlets as Java technology based web components.

Liferay Portal allows users to set up features common to websites. It is fundamentally constructed of functional units called portlets. Liferay is sometimes described as a content management framework or a web application framework. Liferay's support for plugins extends into multiple programming languages, including support for PHP and Ruby portlets.

Although Liferay offers a sophisticated programming interface for developers, no programming skills are required for basic website installation and administration.

Liferay Portal is Java based and runs on any computing platform capable of running the Java Runtime Environment and an application server. Liferay is available bundled with a servlet container such as Apache Tomcat.

Liferay was created in 2000 by Chief Software Architect Brian Chan to provide an enterprise portal solution for non-profit organizations. In 2004, the company was incorporated under the name Liferay, Inc., formalized its Germany subsidiary Liferay GmbH. In 2007, the company opened a new Asian headquarters in Dalian, China and the Spanish subsidiary Liferay SL. In March 2009, the company opened a new office in Bangalore, India.

Thought Leadership and Innovation  

·     Created in 2000 and open sourced in 2002

·     First portal to introduce Web OS

·     First portal to deploy AJAX enabled user interfaces

·     Members of the JSR 286 (Portlet Specification) & JSR 314 (Java ServerFaces Specifications) Committees

Ready to go…

·     Built in Content Management System (CMS) and Collaboration Suite

·     Out-of-the-box usability—choose from over 60 portlets and over 20 themes

·     Out-of-the-box development tools

·     Out-of-the-box support for 22 languages

·     Runs on all major application servers, databases and operating systems (over 700 deployment configurations)

·     Business-friendly MIT License

Easy to use…

·      Award-winning AJAX-enabled user interface (e.g. Web OS)

·     Community-centric services for easy creation of extranets, intranets, and social networks .

·     Familiar desktop UI and conventions Delegable granular security and role based authorizations

Technically sound….

·     Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) with web services support

·     LDAP support and integration

·     Portal as a Platform services for rapid portal development and deployment

·     Secure enterprise application integration framework

v Standards Compliant: JSR-286, JSR-170, JBI, WSRP

Growing, Profitable Company

Active Community

Liferay Portal is the most widely downloaded, Open Source Portal in the world.

·     Over 1 Million downloads and over 60,000 downloads per month

§  66% of downloads - Liferay Portal

§  33% of downloads - Liferay IDE & Plug-ins

§  1.3 million total downloads to date

·     Over 5800 registered community members

·     Over 50 active volunteer contributors