Portal Solution Assurance

 

Pre-Review Checklist

Activity Description
Product bundle to be reviewed
  • WebSphere® Portal Extend
  • WebSphere® Portal Enable

Implementing Double Byte Char Sets (DBCS)?

  • What codes pages will be used for each product in the WebSphere® Portal Bundle? You must know each one in advance.

  • Support structure - Is each component in WP V6.0 already GA in your region. You may encounter problems if a component is not GA yet because the support structure will not be enabled if a DBCS issue arises.

  • Do the portlets you plan to use support DBCS? You cannot deploy portlets that do not support DBCS.

Document describing the customer requirements.
Customer organization and executive sponser identified?
Customer's present business enviornment/background understood and documented?
Functional requirements
Operational requirements
Performance requirements
Scalability and workload understood, documented and signed off?
Business Process Integration requirements understood and documented?
Web content management requirements understood and documented?
Conditions of satisfaction and acceptance criteria are known, documented and agreed?
Business benefits and drivers understood and documented?
Staffing/Resourcdes available to support this solution?

 

Product Capability

Activity Description
Have the overall architecture and software products need to support the solution been determined?
Can WebSphere® Portal meet the customer's availability, scalability and workload requirements? Are the requirements documented and signed off?
Can the published capabilities and functionality of WebSphere® Portal Server meet the customer's general expectations?

 

Solution Evaluation Criteria

Activity Description
What kind of project is being proposed?
  • First portal installation
  • Migration of previous veresion of WebSphere® Portal
  • Migration of another vendor's portal

Will portal involve
  • Migration of non-WebSphere® web application(s) to portal model?
  • Migration of WebSphere® web application to portal?
  • New applications
  • Migration of large amounts of data from one database/source to another?

What type of functionality will the portal use?
  • Customized out of box portlets (excluding web Clipping)
  • Web Clipping
  • Inter-portlet communication
  • Portal Document Management
  • Virtual Portal
  • Business Process Integration
  • IBM® Workplace Web Content Management®
  • Web Services
  • Web Services proxy portlet
  • Credential Vault
  • HOD Portlet
  • HATS Portlets
  • Pre-built portlet from catalog access to back end systems
  • Lotus Extended Search
  • Other portlets whipped with WebSphere® Portal
  • Other portlets from the portlet catalog.

Are customer requirements for branding the look and feel of the portal known?
Will JCA adapters be required? If so, are they pre-written or will they need to be developed?
Will WebSphere® MQ connectivity be required?
Will pervasive devices be used to connect to the portal?
Are unusually sever consequences possible if the solution implementation is unsuccessful or delayed, or is the solution considered to be mission critical?
Are you aware of or anticipate any conditions that could impair your ability to deliver the solution successfully?
Has a project leader with overall responsibility for coordinating this project been assigned?

 

Design

Activity Description
Does the design meet the functional requirements?
Does the design meet the performance requirements?
Does the design meet the availability requirements?
Does the design meet data backup and recovery requirements?
Does the design meet upgradeability requirements?
Does the design meet scalability requirements?
Is a benchmark or proof of concept required? If so, has it ben resourced and funded?
Does the design or solution depend on an unannounced product?

 

Configuration

Activity Description
Have all eFixes called out in the release notes been downloaded?
Proposed IBM® S/W and H/W configured and documented?
Proposed non-IBM® hardware /software configuration documented and verified?
Have the configurations been produced or checked by a specialist experienced in using the configurator.
Have the appropriate versions of all required software been included?
Has software and hardware compatibility been checked?
Has the overall architecture and application flow of the solution been determined?
Have the performance, scalability, load balancing, and high availability requirements been documented?
Do you have an activce network connection that supports TCP/IP
Are there other software products which will be integrated into the solution.
Have the security requirements been documented?
Root user, or a user with root authority must be used to install much of the software. Does the customer allow using root for installation purposes?
does the user who will be performing the installation have permission to create/update users and databases. Need to have requisite permissons for LDAP and database.
Will a proxy server be involved in the installation?
Are all communication ports that will be used understood, defined, and documented?
Will all ports be open during software installation?

 

Solution Characteristics

Activity Description
Have you build adequate time into the project schedule for load/scale/performance testing?
Is overall raw performance an issue?
Which version control system is to be used and does the customer have the skills required to administer the system?
  • CVS
  • ClearCase
  • Jira
  • Other
  • None

Will workflow be used in IWWCM?
Will workflow be used in Portal Document Manager?
Is the solution or application required to be up and running 24 hours a day and 7 days a week?
Have you identified the Web Server to be used?
Have you identified the database that will host the portal configuration data?
Have you identified the type, if any, of LDAP that will be used?
Have you identified the platforms and operatins systems on which the web server and the application server will run?

 

Implementation and Operation

Activity Description
Does a project plan exist for the implementation?
Has a post sales support contract been included in the proposal to cover the operational hours?
Is it explicitly stated who is responsible for systems management, both defining the process and tools and providing the servicdes?
Are there any formal acceptance tests? Who owns them? Has sufficient resourcdes been planned to produce, negotiate, and execute them?
What are plans for a test environment. If the Customer has no plans then mark this as a high-rick item.
What are the plans to test this technical solution. Do th eplans incorporate use of:
  • a sophisticated load simulation tool?
  • creation and use of load scripts
  • creation and execution of testing scenarios?
  • Use cases

Will the solution be stess tested?
Are there plans for final performance tuning of the application server.
Has time for testing been allocated for this in the project plan.
What plans are in place to generate new test scenarios when new code is written during any stage of the application?

 

Services and Education

Activity Description
Does the solution include education that addresses the area of appdev, implementation, as well as production, operations, and administration?
If education is included, has an appropriate education provider been identified and engaged.

 

Skill Assessment

Activity Description
Have at least some project members successfully completed any earlier projects using Websphere Portal?
Does the architecture of the overall system require complex WebSphere® administration (e.g. clustering, failover management, performance tuning, etc...)?
What skill level is available for architecting the Application Server (0-5)
What skill level is available for administering the Application Server (0-5)
What skill level is available for administering the Web Server (0-5)
Does the project team contain membes with the appropriate Lotus product skills?
Are Java programming skills required for this project?
Are JSP/servlet development skills required for this project?
Are web service development skills required for this project?
What skill level is available for LDAP administration and integration?
What skill level is available for TAM integration?
Are WebSphere® MQ skills required for this project?
Does the project have at least functional admin skills for each OS running some solution component (portal server, web server, app server, admin repository, data store, enterprise server).
Does the project have at least functional DBA and other required admin skills for each database to be used by the solution?

 

Security Assessment

Activity Description
Does the solution require separation of the web server and the application server?
What type of user authentication is required?







 

Legacy Data

Activity Description
Which of the following Enterprise Servers are to be accessed by the application?
  • PeopleSoft
  • Oracle
  • MQ Series
  • SAP
  • Baan
  • Siebel
  • Other

Will this app include model business processes which span multiple back ends
Is two-phase commit a requirement of any of the business processes being modeled?

 

Hardware

Activity Description
Has the hardware config been sized and verified to match the customer's requirements?
Have the following been taken into consideration:
  • Number of users, apps, nodes, partitions
  • Physical size of machines
  • Scalability and high availability
  • Does each machine meet the component hardware requirement?
  • Redundancy required for each machine?

Does the machine have multiple LPARs
Have hardware requirements for other software needed to implement the full solution been documented and verified?
Can the configuration be expanded easily to meet future growth?
Has the customer planned client, server, and host connectivity options?
Are hardware maintenance requirements known and agreed?
Have components been identifed for the customer's system backup and recovery procedures?
Have System Management tools and services been propsed?
Have required system management consoles been configured?

 

Networking

Activity Description
Is the appropriate network infrastructure in place (LAN, WAN, router, bridge, cabling)?
Are Network schematics documented and available?
Have the appropriate connectivity options been explored and decided upon?
Are additional Networking Hardware devicdes (routers, switches, etc...) required to implement hte solution?
Will a DNS server be employed in the network?
If firewalls are employed, will specific ports be able to be opened up?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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® Workplace Web Content Management is a trademark of the IBM® Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.

 

® WebSphere is a trademark of the IBM® Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.

 

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