You are planning to implement a Portal Solution.

You are not sure if you also need a Content Management System and how to integrate these two pieces...

Portal Server benefits as an integrator of WEB initiatives and central workplace and information center are broadly recognized by industry leaders.

But Portal Servers are more like an access Window than an Information Management System. Each Company has an exponentially growing amount of information: Catalogs, External and Internal Documents, News, Job Offers, ... These pieces of information are not usually managed by the Portal itself: there is a need for a Knowledge and Content Management System.

Architecture & Integration
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A Content Management System (CMS) allows to:

• Store and organize structured and unstructured information such as files, Documents, Product Characteristics,...
• Define lifecycle for all pieces of information: you can set responsibilities for information creation, information owners, Validity date, ...
• Make some search in your own information.

Some Portal Vendors offers some simple CMS functionality, that might be enough at a first glance.

But if you want to think at a medium or long term, you will need a complete CMS solution: you must implement it jointly with your portal from the beginning, or if not possible for any reason, have it planned in a short term. As an alternative solution, some CMS vendors can offer you light version of their products, that you can upgrade to full version whenever your needs justify it.

Portal vendors are leaded by Java Community, that are, as always, defining standards to insure portability and compatibility between Portal Solutions, and also between Portal and CMS solutions.

• JSR 168 is a workgroup that ended in 2003 the definition of a standard portlet, in such a way that any portlet designed on a Portal Server Product should work "as is" if installed in another Vendors's solution.
• JSR 170 (to be finalized during 2005) will define a standard interface to access a CMS repository from a portlet. Any portlet developed using this standard will allow you to change CMS provider repository without having to be redeveloped.
   

 

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