UPortal Ken Weiner JA-SIG, IBS [email protected].

uPortal

Ken WeinerKen Weiner

JA-SIG, IBSJA-SIG, IBS

[email protected]@interactivebusiness.com

CUMREC 2001 • Ken Weiner, IBS

JA-SIG

• Java In AdministrationSpecial Interest Group• www.jasig.org

• Conferences biannually• Clearing house

• https://www.mis4.udel.edu/JasigCH/

• Collaborative projects


uPortal Community

• University of British Columbiamy.ubc.ca

•Boston College•Cal Poly San Luis Obispo•College of the Holy Cross•Columbia University •Cornell University•Interactive Business Solutions

•Meteor Project•Memorial University of Newfoundland•Plymouth State University

•Princeton University •Rutgers University•University of Delaware •University of Hawaii•University of California, Irvine •University of Colorado•University of New Mexico•Villanova University•Virtual Education Space (VES)•Yale University


What is uPortal?

• Enterprise, horizontal portal• Framework for presenting

aggregated content (channels)• Personalization• Role-based access control• Open source, collaborative effort• Java web application • XML transformations (XSLT)


Where does uPortal fit?

Data Applications

uPortal with Channels

Browsing Devices

People


What is a Channel?

• Displays content • XML feeds

• Rich Site Summary (RSS)

• Legacy system

• An interactive application• Bookmarks• Email


Flexible Layouts

• Structures• Tab / column• Tree / column

• Themes• Multi-column• Multi-row

• Skins• Matrix, Java


Content Transformation

XML

Stylesheet

XHTML: Web Browser

WML: Cell Phone

HTML: PDA

XSLTProcessor


Tab / Column Layout


Tree / Column Layout


Multiple Target Devices


Interfaces Facilitate Implementation

Alice wants to see the faculty

calendar.

Is Alice a faculty member?

Look in our LDAP directory

Contact ourHR application

or

Interface

Implementations


uPortal Interfaces

• Authentication• Proving your identity

• Authorization• Deciding what you can access

• User preferences• Profiles, structure, themes, skins

• Channel information• Availability and configuration


Release Schedule

• uPortal 1.0• July 2000

• uPortal 1.5• February 2001

• uPortal 1.6• June 2001

• uPortal 2.0 Beta• May 2001

• uPortal 2.0• July 2001


What’s new in 2.0?

• Abstraction of layout• Structure/theme transformations• Standard channel events• Standard CSS classes• More flexible publish/subscribe• User profile management• JNDI lookup service• WebProxy channel


Coming Soon

• Layout-specific userpreferences management

• Fully-normalized database• Support for “Wallet”

authentication• Integration of vendor content• More support for cell phones

and palm pilots


Support and Services

• uPortal Mailing List• [email protected]

• Interactive Business Solutions• www.interactivebusiness.com• uPortal Implementation Services• uPortal Training


Questions?

• Useful URLs• www.jasig.org• www.udel.edu/uPortal• www.interactivebusiness.com


Going Live with JA-SIG’s uPortal

Dave Frazer Associate Director

ITServicesThe University of British Columbia


• How it began• Why uPortal• Implementing the Reference code• Sharing our Experience

myUBC


• 35k FTE students• R1, Medical and Professional • #2 in Canada• Located in Vancouver

University of BC


• Access to information• Collaborative Initiative• JA-SIG• uPortal Initiative• Hit the ground running

How it All Began


Attractions and Opportunities

• Technologies• Open Source• Small• Clean, flexible, processing model• The Portal Promise• JA-SIG


Challenges

• Technologies new to us• Developers reference implementation

• Unknown performance• Unknown robustness• Unknown reliability

• Deciding what functionality to deliver


What gave us the confidenceto proceed?

• Useful, but not critical function• Release date important but not critical• Gradual release strategy• Experienced development team• Proven existing infrastructure

• BEA WebLogic Server• Oracle RDBMS• Sun E450 hardware


The major problem we faced

Can we turn a reference implementaton into a production service?


Reference Implementations

and Prototypes

• Demonstrate correct behaviour• Environment is predefined• Environment is assumed clean• User behaviour expected to be reasonable• Database assumed clean and maintained• The 20% of the code that does correct things


Production Services

• Reasonable behaviour in an existing environment

• Wide audience• Must behave reasonably all the time• Databases must be maintained• Need other 80% of the code


What we did to address the problem

• Froze the repository code• Ported to the Oracle RDBMS• Adapted to local authentication• BEA WebLogic Servlet/JSP engine• Team experienced in OS development


Other Challenges

• New technologies• Selecting channel functionality


First Experiences

• In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are different

• Our first scaling problems• Database problem recovery• Database out of service• Channels out of service


How did we achieve control?

• Few, well-behaved channels• Minimal dependence on external resources• Enhancements to database recovery• Substantial hardware platform• Avoided experimental changes• Gradual release strategy


How successful were we?

• Users happy• Confident we can grow• New content limitations• Forked from reference code• Learned a lot


What we should have done(according to the rules)

• System testing• Volume testing• User environment testing• Stress testing• Load testing


We were lucky

No wildly chaotic behaviours orhotspots were observed


Would we do it differently?

Given our goals and requirements -

… Probably not


What’s Next?

• Development of 2.x• 1.0 -> 1.6 -> 2.x• install myUBC server• Implement more content• Do the testing• Target all students in Sept

Visit us at

my.ubc.ca

[email protected]

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UPortal Ken Weiner JA-SIG, IBS [email protected].

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