Chapter 1. Portals and Portal Servers

A portal in the true sense of the word, is a common entrance to a destination. Portals on the Internet, also called web portals, are a single entry point to an application that provides varied features such as personalized and aggregated content, search capabilities, and customized applications.

Portals have gained significant popularity as a means for generating business values through efficient marketing, sales, and services, as well as being a channel for providing timely, useful, and accurate information and services to users.

In this chapter, we will review the basics of web portals, their types, differentiating characteristics, and uses.

Later in the chapter, we will also talk about portal servers, their types, applications architecture, and governing specifications. Portlets are independent pieces of functions that constitute a portal application. We will also briefly discuss how these basic building blocks help in providing the overall value for a portal application.