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Sinha, pp. 68-95, copyright 2007 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global). 750 Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 3.5 Collaborative Real-Time Information Services via Portals Wei Dai Victoria University, Australia INTRODUCTION The increased use of online services in the commercial world has produced considerable impact on traditional technologies. Traditional information technologies were developed in an era where use of Internet technologies was not widespread. They have a long history and are often based on mature and stable technologies, RUSUDFWLFHVVXFKDVXVHULQWHUIDFHGHVLJQDUWL¿- cial intelligence techniques, and so forth. In the era of e-business, business operations are often conducted in conjunction with business alliances and partners through networked activities. In- WHUQHWRU:HEEDVHGWHFKQRORJLHVDUHIXO¿OOLQJ an enabling role to meet the communication and collaboration requirements of e-business. In this article, we share our experiences in how traditional information technologies are coupled with Web- based technologies to gain much-needed leverage in offering e-business solutions. Portals, as the major communication media for Web users, of- fer opportunities for collaboration using multiple technologies. They also serve as mechanisms for integrating a variety of online services supported by traditional applications. In this article we will discuss the role of portals in application integration for online collaborative service delivery. Particular emphasis will be given to the marrying of the modern roles of portals in e-business with those UROHVZKHUHSRUWDOVIXO¿OWKHWUDGLWLRQDOUROHVRI front-end technologies. The article demonstrates its vision through a portal-based application in- tegration solution framework associated with a typical application scenario. We demonstrate the effectiveness of using portals in application inte- gration by employing an experimental framework implemented in the PHOENIX research project at Victoria University (http://www.staff.vu.edu. au/PHOENIX/phoenix/index1.htm). 751 Collaborative Real-Time Information Services via Portals RESEARCH PROJECT BACKGROUND TECHNOLOGIES Before we describe our solution framework, we outline the background technologies used in our research project. These consist of portal technologies, knowledge management and Web services. Portals Infrastructure Portal solutions are heavily reliant on the use of existing applications and infrastructure to improve R Q O L Q H V H U Y L F H V HI ¿FLHQF \ 2 X U I U D PH ZRUNL V E D V H G on the logical architecture suggested by Britton (2001). This architecture contains three tiers—the presentation layer, the application server layer, and an enterprise information services layer. The Presentation Layer The main function of the presentation layer is WRSURYLGHDXQL¿HGYLHZRIUHVXOWVGHOLYHUHGE\ different applications that users usually view on browsers. There are common ways to render in- formation content on the browsers such as HTML, plug-ins, applets, and portlets (Britton, 2001). Of these methods, we pay special attention to porlets. Portals use portlets as pluggable user interface components that provide a presentation layer and produce dynamic information displayed on the portal. They run on the Web server that provides content to the Web browser. Portlets also import different services offered by other applications to the front-end by determining the service features to be displayed on the user interface. Thus, portlets provide a bridge to the portal’s middle tier. Most portal construction software allows administra- tors to create their own customised portlets. Application Server Layer The presentation layer provides input to the ap- plication server layer. Application server refers to software residing beneath the Web server that handles the special designated tasks received by the Web server from end-users. In this layer, business rules are executed triggering possible application integration operations. The applica- tion server applies business solution logic and delivers the results back to the Web server be- fore the results are sent to the users’ browsers. An application server usually works in an n-tier environment because it performs different roles at different levels. Some of the main roles that the application server provides include back-end application coordination and integration (e.g., applications for taking orders, credit checking, DQGIXO¿OOLQJRUGHUVDQGH[HFXWLRQRIEXVLQHVV ORJLFHJUHODWHGZRUNÀRZLQUHVSRQVHWRXVHUV requirements. Some commercial vendors have combined the roles of Web server and application server in their products. For example, SAP Web application server combines the roles of standard Web server and application server. Enterprise Information Services Layer This layer contains enterprise information systems (EIS) such as CRM systems, database systems, and legacy systems (Britton, 2001). The systems can be located across company boundaries offering potential integration opportunities via a layered infrastructure of portal services. WEB SERVICES Web services is an emerging technology that sup- ports application integration across the Internet. 7KH*DUWQHU*URXSGH¿QHVDWeb service DV³$VRI W ZDUHFRPSRQHQWW KDWUHSUHVHQWVDEXVL- ness function (or a business service) and can be accessed by another application (a client, a server or another Web Service) over public networks us- ing generally available ubiquitous protocols and transports (i.e. SOAP over HTTP).” That is, once 752 Collaborative Real-Time Information Services via Portals a Web service is deployed, other applications (and other Web services) can discover and invoke the deployed service. STANDARDS AND PROTOCOLS The technical standard and protocols for portal applications are sharable with those for Web services. Thus portals and Web services can be combined to offer applications integration solu- tions across Internet. Some of these protocols and standards include: WSRP Web services for remote portlets (WSRP) is a standard that enables portals to access and display portlets that are hosted on a remote server. The :653VSHFL¿FDWLRQGH¿QHVD:HEVHUYLFHLQWHU- face for interacting with interactive presentation- oriented Web services. The motivations behind the WSRP functionality include: (a) allowing portal servers to provide portlets as presenta- tion-oriented Web services that can be used by engines consuming Web services; (b) allowing portal servers to integrate services from different content providers into a portal framework. WSDL Web Services Description Language (WSDL) (Christensen et al., 2001) is used by Web services to describe available services. It provides an ef- fective way for service providers to describe their VHUYLFHV$:6'/GH¿QLWLRQFRQWDLQVWKHLQIRU- mation necessary for two systems to exchange Web service messages. SOAP Simple object access protocol (SOAP) is used for invoking Web services and is based on XML. It provides an envelope for sending and receiving XML data and documents. It allows program components and applications to interact with each other via the HTTP Internet protocol. SOAP is platform independent, does not depend on the SURJUDPPLQJODQJXDJHLVVLPSOHÀH[LEOHDQG easily expandable. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM INDEX (Dai & Wright, 1996) is the knowledge management system currently being used in the P H O E N I X r e s e a r c h p r o j e c t . I t i s u s e d to c o o r di n a t e application integration processes and to provide integration knowledge to management services. Integration knowledge guides the system in choosing and invoking the appropriate applica- tion packages or services in response to the tasks originating from the portal front-end. It is also used to deliver solutions back to the portal. The knowledge driven approach ensures that users’ requests and information services are processed and delivered intelligently. The core services INDEX provides include the goal-directed infer- ence (GDI) and the event-driven inference (EDI). These provide services and knowledge editing facilities, which are deployed as Web services, thus allowing INDEX services and facilities to be assessable remotely across the Internet. GDI and EDI services cover a variety of tasks associated with users’ requirements. For instance, when us- HUVKDYHZHOOGH¿QHGWDVNVLQPLQG*',VHUYLFHV such as fault diagnosis would be appropriate. If XVHUVGRQRWNQRZWKHVSHFL¿FWDVNVRUSUREOHPV EDI could assist them by providing services such as alerts to management. The INDEX knowledge management system has the capability of com- municating with external systems or application packages such as portals that serve as application front-ends. 753 Collaborative Real-Time Information Services via Portals ONLINE COLLABORATION SERVICE DELIVERY FRAMEWORK The need to tie together incompatible enterprise systems has increased so greatly that many compa- nies have shifted their IT focus from development to integration. Given the importance of integra- tion, PHOENIX aims to leverage the service-ori- ented infrastructure for applications integration in order to build and generate user centric solutions DQGEXVLQHVVVSHFL¿FDSSOLFDWLRQV&RQVHTXHQWO\ on-demand solutions, such as improving business LQWHOOLJHQFHRU¿QGLQJEHWWHUDSSURDFKHVLQWKH supply chain of an organization, are produced through the collaboration of various solutions. These solutions are integrated by middleware. The middleware acts as the intermediary for software agents of components associated with applications connected to the business system by either wired or wireless networks. Without such integration, individual enterprise technology systems work in partially or completely autonomous environments thus limiting their effectiveness. The aim of PHEONIX’s applied research is the delivery of innovative applications combin- ing traditional and leading edge technologies that include application packages and products and services from leading vendors. The use of Portals plays several important roles in our research. Two RIWKHPRUHLPSRUWDQWUROHVDUH¿UVWO\SURYLGLQJ front-end Web-based user interface services and secondly, acting as a bridge for back-end appli- cation integration services. Figure 1 shows the high-level conceptual diagram associated with WKH DSSOLFDWLRQV RULHQWHG UHVHDUFK 7KH ¿JXUH shows client requests generated from various Figure 1. Conceptual diagram for the proposed applied research environment ESB via IBM WebSphere Business Integration (WBI) RDBMS SQL Server RDBMS Oracle RDBMS Legacy Database RDBMS Sybase Business Logic Modules SAP NetWea ver Web Serv ices INDEX Coordination Serv ices Network Client Network Client Mobile Client Mobile Client Mobile Client Application Client Application Client Application Clien t Interface Agent Generic INDEX Interfac e INDEX Virtual Schema Enterprise Information System Real World Applications IBM WebSphere INDEX Virtual Schema IBM WebSphere Portal with Workplace Client Plug-ins . deployed, other applications (and other Web services) can discover and invoke the deployed service. STANDARDS AND PROTOCOLS The technical standard and protocols for portal applications are. traditional and Internet mar- kets. Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, 9(2), 89-492. Stroebel, M. (2001). Design of roles and protocols for electronic negotiations. Electronic. Trade and De- velopment. Urbaczewski, A., Jessup, L. M., & Wheeler, B. (2002). Electronic commerce research: A taxonomy and a synthesis. Journal of Organi- sational Computing and Electronic