WebSphere

 

Portal Express, Version 6.0
Operating systems: i5/OS, Linux, Windows

 

Overview of staging the portal to production

 

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Introduction

The portal team...

Portal solutions consist of artifacts...

...and configurations...

The portal solution is initially developed on one system, while the production portal solution is deployed later on a different production system. The process of moving the portal solution between these systems is called staging. Staging is required at multiple times during the development cycle of a portal solution. Staging is only possible between the same product release.

 

Portal configuration management

WebSphere Portal Express configuration data is manageable through...

Application payload data includes...

Release configuration data is exported into XMLAccess configuration files.

Follow-on releases, stage deltas, are built using the XML configuration interface.

 

Team roles

The following roles are involved or affected by the Development/Integration/Staging to Production process.

 

Developer Roles (Development Team):

Portlet application developer:

The Portlet application developer is responsible for developing Portlets and Portlet Applications. His tasks in the portal team include: Development of portlets, assembly and packaging of portlet applications into WAR files according to the Java portlet standard, and unit test of portlets. Packaging may include other artifacts, like JSPs, produced by the Portlet application designer.

Portal application developer:

The Portal application developer creates the technical design of the portal application, and assembles and implements portal applications. These applications usually consists of a variety of portal artifacts packaged together into a portal application EAR file.

The Portal application developer also develops extensions for the portal runtime container. Additional tasks with include development of portlet services, portal services, user management services, dynamic assembly transformations and screens, credential vault adaptors, and customized login commands.

Portal user interface designer:

The portal user interface designer develops the user interface design and implementation for specific portal applications. The designer's tasks include development of custom themes, layouts, skins, screens (login, error,...), and the assignment of themes and skins to the portal application.

 

Other team members

Release manager:

The release manager is responsible for the artifact and configuration management and consistency within the Version Control System (VCS). His tasks in the portal team include: Build and bundle portal solution release out of the VCS for deployment, delivery of solution releases.

Portal deployer:

The Portal Deployer is responsible for deploying the content released by the release manager. The content may consist of installing or updating portal solutions, portal applications, single portlet applications, themes and skins, configuration of the portal product, and importing and exporting portal configurations.

Portal administrator:

The portal administrator is a portal end user with extended permissions in order to administer a specific portal solution or sub-portion of the portal solution. The portal administrator is responsible for defining the portal content for the portal end users including creating and editing portal pages, managing users, managing groups, managing entitlements, managing system credentials, and managing themes and skins.

The portal administrator uses the administrative portlets in order to perform these tasks.

Portal operator:

The Portal Operator is responsible for installation and maintenance of the base layers of the infrastructure (closely related to the hardware and operating system platform). His tasks in the portal team include activities like: setting up hardware, installing of products, execute portal config tasks, network configuration, setting up system monitoring, implementing backup procedures, system maintenance (for example, log file archiving), management of operating system users.

Portal end user:

The portal end user accesses the portal using a client device. The portal user may or may not have an account to log into the portal to access a personalized view of the portal. Portal end users can customize their individual appearance and content of the portal. Portal users use subsets of the portal administration user interface based on the set of rights they are granted within the portal.

 

Portal Solution Release Configuration

The Portal Solution Release Configuration is defined by the complete portal configuration that is part of a portal solution release.

These configurations are created and changed by the portal administrators. Changes to the portal solution release configuration usually affect more than one user.

 

Portal User Configurations

Portal User Configurations are Portal Configurations that belong to only one user (configurations of private entities). These configurations typically result from customizations performed by end users of the portal. Changes of these configurations impact only one user of the portal system. The following configuration entities are user configurations.

 

Parent topic:

Staging to production

 

Related concepts
Staging the portal to production

 

Related reference

Manual steps prior to using ReleaseBuilder