Weaving WebSphere: WebSphere Portal Express First Look

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[deaston@mbsbooks.com]

Weaving WebSphere: WebSphere Portal Express First Look

** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: WebSphere Portal Express First Look **
Portlets are mentioned vis a vis web services. I assume this means that a portlet can be developed as "interactive", but accessed by another portlet in "batch"? Also, do CGI web programs fall into the same realm as 5250 when it comes to integration into this portlet scheme? On the outside it seems that portlets are just a fancy, web based menu system. However, the ability to have an application interact with people or with another application is compelling. Is XML used in this case to ascribe meaning to data being exchanged? Thanks for an interesting article, and peeling back the face of portlets a bit. I've heard a lot of hype, but not seen much substance until this.

[J.Pluta]

Weaving WebSphere: WebSphere Portal Express First Look

** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: WebSphere Portal Express First Look **
As of this writing, as far as I know portlets are designed specifically to render HTML for presentation. Technically, this could be used to communicate in a "batch" environment, but I don't think that direction is being actively pursued. Instead, when someone talks about web services in conjunction with portlets it usually has to do with "remote portlets". In this situation, your primary web server may gather the contents of portlets running on one or more remote machines. This sort of extended architecture has lots of potential. Joe

[deaston@mbsbooks.com]

Weaving WebSphere: WebSphere Portal Express First Look

** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: WebSphere Portal Express First Look **
I was wondering about your statement that portlets will be a killer app for iseries. Based on your comment that portlets allow legacy and new development to work together, I assume these killer apps are in the context of the existing install base, i.e. portlet applications won't in themselves bring new customers to the install base of OS400?

[J.Pluta]

Weaving WebSphere: WebSphere Portal Express First Look

** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: WebSphere Portal Express First Look **
Not at all. In fact, the portal interface is what is going to bring new customers to the existing (and new!) iSeries vendors. If I were an iSeries software vendor, I would be hopping on this like mad, because it's the way I can introduce my powerful application base to a whole new generation of customers. The one thing that the midrange platform has always had is robust, industrial strength business applications - the kinds of things people actually run their business on. Desktop PCs and particularly Windows machines gave users a new kind of interface and availability to data that they didn't have before, but it never really replaced the back room functions of the midrange. What many shops ended up with was an amalgam of front-office Windows applications cobbled onto their back-office midrange systems. Even as the PC applications get more complex, they still have never reached (or even approached) the sophistication of a standard iSeries business application. Take ERP for instance. An MRP generation or special pricing on an iSeries is light years ahead of anything ever written for a PC. If you take into account the generally poor quality and performance of Windows solutions, the proprietary Windows architecture and the lack of customizability of most Windwos programs, green screen applications are still by far the best investment for business users. But they don't look sexy. And the Windows salesmen outsell the iSeries guys. And when people decide to simplify their environment, rather than simplifying the intelligent way, onto the iSeries, they buy into the concept that Windows machines can replace the iSeries. As we all know, the only way that happens is with big, expensive server farms and the hoards of people required to run them. But until the iSeries can counter the look and feel issue, there's no way a new IT manager who grew up on Nintendo and Excel is going to buy a green screen application. The portal, then, is the way to put a beautiful, up-to-date, leading edge interface onto that great bulk of tried and true legacy applications, applications that have still not been ported in any meaningful way to the PC. I think the thing that will bring new users to the iSeries is the fact that we already have a huge base of already designed and written legacy systems - systems that have been running companies for years. And once we put a nice face on them with a portal interface, the whole green screen problem will be gone. Add to that the fact that you can also write new code for things that the old systems weren't built to do, and seamlessly integrate these new applications with the legacy systems, and that is the basis of your killer app. Joe

[deaston@mbsbooks.com]

Weaving WebSphere: WebSphere Portal Express First Look

** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: WebSphere Portal Express First Look **
Very interesting. It seems as though in some respects IBM has recognized the value of iseries lately, but that recognition pertains to what might be considered the true OS, SLIC. The ability to run AIX, LINUX, Windows servers and yes OS400 if you still need it, has an appeal in their server consolidation marketing approach. It seems as though OS400 as an operating environment takes a back seat in this scheme, other than the fact that you presently need it as a primary partition, and it may be seen as a good database/Java server. The broad appeal of the operating environment comes from the applications available, and it seems to me that this has been in decline. I can see where portlets provide more than simply "web facing", and you get to keep the green screen in contexts where it remains a superior user interface. I hope your prognostications are on target Joe. Perhaps this is why IBM invested so much in their own Web Facing product, and has touted it so much, knowing that portlets were coming. Or maybe that's because someone else's product allows you to avoid the interactive tax, regardless of your hardware...