Stage a portal to production
Overview
Portal solutions consist of artifacts...
- portlets
- themes
- skins
- portlet services
...and configurations...
- content topology
- page layouts
- wires
- portlet configurations
- portlet data
The process of moving the portal solution between development and production systems is called staging.
During the portal development lifecycle, multiple portal solution releases are created and brought into production. Multiple solution releases are built on top of one portal product release. In contrast, upgrading a portal product release is called migration. Staging is only possible between the same product release.
Portal configuration management
WebSphere Portal has configuration data manageable through...
- Property files
- Installation dialogs
- Configuration tasks
A WebSphere Portal solution release consists of application payload data...
- content trees
- page layouts
- access control lists
- credential vault
- concrete portlets
The ReleaseBuilder allows management of release configurations independent of user configurations. Release configuration data can be exported into an XMLAccess configuration file. During staging of follow-on releases it is possible to stage differences between two releases using the XML configuration interface. Here, difference refers to differences in release configurations, including configuration entities that have been removed, added or changed compared to the previous release.
Team roles
The staging process...
Development | Integration | Staging | Production...encompasses the following development team roles...
- Portlet application developer:
- Responsible for...
- Creating portlets and portlet applications
- Packaging of portlet applications into WAR files
- Unit testing of portlets.
Packaging may include other artifacts, like JSPs, produced by the Portlet application designer.
- 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 works with...
- extensions for the portal runtime container
- portlet services
- portal services
- user management services
- dynamic assembly transformations
- screens
- credential vault adaptors
- customized login commands
- wires
- Portal user interface designer:
- Develops the user interface design and implementation for specific portal applications. Tasks include...
- custom themes and skins
- layouts
- screens (login, error,...)
- assignment of themes and skins to the portal application
- Release manager:
- Responsible for the artifact and configuration management and consistency within the VControl System (VCS). Tasks include...
- Build and bundle portal solution release out of the VCS for deployment
- Delivery of solution releases.
- Portal deployer:
- 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
- importing and exporting portal configurations
- Portal administrator:
- 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
- managing themes and skins
The portal administrator uses the administrative portlets in order to perform these tasks.
- Portal operator:
- Responsible for installation and maintenance of the base layers of the infrastructure (closely related to the hardware and operating system platform). Tasks include...
- 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:
- 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.
- Implicit derived pages
- Private user pages
- Portlet data
- Credential data (private or shared but not system scoped)
Parent topic:
Stage to production
Related concepts
Stage portal to production
Related reference:
Manual steps prior to using ReleaseBuilder