WebSphere Portal WMM to VMM comparison

Thursday I have attended a webcast from IBM regarding WebSphere Portal WMM to VMM comparison. Though I have joined bit late because of client meeting I did make sure to capture some of the screen shots of the presenation given. I must say it was very helpful session to understand the changes/modification made since WMM component in WPS 6.0.
Below are the screen shots of the presentation give, although they are not in complete.

Hope this might help you... :)

Co-existing Installations of WPS 6.1 on Linux

It had been a quite loaded last week for me. Currently working for one of our prestigious clients John Deere, I come across a requirement which is less common in today's portal infrastructure scenario across the organizations. Might be due to cost saving on hardware as well as software resources client wants to have two portal server 6.1.0.1 instances on single linux box with existing WAS. Looked nearly impossible on first attempt, we got it working after concentrated research on co-existing intallations.

Here I am making it quite easy for you by compiling them into following steps.

• Install the first portal instance on your linux box. Here is a link.
• Varify your installaton by hitting the portal URL as well as application console URL.
• Before installing second Portal Server instance make sure that all the applications on that linux box have been started so as to avoid any port conflicts.
• This second portal installation will be using an existing WebSphere directory with an existing instance of WebSphere Application Server.
• run the following command on the terminal.

./install.sh -console -W globalInstall.active=false -W was.undetectedWas="/opt/ibm/WebSphere" -W globalInstall.location=/opt/ibm/WCM -W wasLocationExistsSequence.active=false -W detectProfileAction.profileName="wcm_profile" -W detectProfileAction.profilePath=/opt/ibm/WebSphere/wcm_profile -W invalidProfileExit.active=false

Note: The directory that is specified for globalInstall.location cannot already contain an installation of Portal. If Portal exists in the desired directory, the EJPIC0054E exception occurs and a new unique directory (WCM in this case) must be used. However, even in this case, the existing installation of WebSphere Application Server can still be used with Portal. In addition, the directory specified by detectProfileAction.profilePath cannot exist prior to installation.

• Enter the appropriate values when prompted and check for the successfull installation.

Here is a technote from IBM which will help you in troubleshooting any problem you face during this procedure.

Build your WebSphere Portal and Lotus Web Content Management demos in the cloud with a no-charge developer edition

IBM is offering a developer server, at no charge, that includes WebSphere Portal Server and Lotus Web Content Management Standard Edition Developer - a combination of two products from IBM capable of delivering a complete portal that can aggregate multiple software solutions, including Web content and external feeds, to deliver a single, exceptional Web experience.

Visit WebSphere Portal Family Wiki for more information.

Webcast: WebSphere Portal WMM to VMM comparison - 26 March 2009

IBM Support is hosting a Webcast and call on the topic of comparing the WebSphere Member Manager (WMM) for WebSphere Portal to the Virtual Member Manager (VMM). This presentation will take place on Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 10:00 AM US EST (3:00 PM GMT).

More details can be found at
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21372473

Redbook released for Managing WebSphere Portal 6.1 Environments

WebSphere Portal Family wiki has released a redbook for managing WebSphere Portal 6.1 environments. This document(wiki) provide information about how to set up a portal environment, including development, staging and production, and how to move changes through the system.

It's available on the WebSphere Portal wiki click here.

How to create 'Edit My Profile' link in custom theme

You may come across a scenario where you need to build a custome theme for the portal in which you need to hide the default lunch button and main menu. By doing this you found that "Edit My Profile" link normally accessed via the Launch button is also hidden.Therefore there is a need to display "Edit My Profile" link in the custom theme that displays at the top of each page.Link should also behave exactly the same way as the one in main menu.


Here are the steps you should follow to get the 'Edit My Profile' link working in your custom theme:

1. First you need to create a unique name for the portlet on selfcare page in portal.Use XMLAccess to export the selfcare page.


• Login to the portal with admin access and navigate to the Edit My Profile Page.


• There is an icon for exporting a page. Click on that.


• This will generate an XML file "pageExport.xml", save this on your system.


2. Update the file so that it has the basic format shown below. Delete the tags and add the uniquename attribute to the final tag as shown below in bold. Add nothing else; delete nothing else.
   
<br /> <component action="update" active="true" deletable="undefined" domain="rel" modifiable="undefined" objectid="7_UV9FQLI11G5GA026LUEL0D1OK0" ordinal="100" orientation="H" type="container" width="undefined"><br /><component action="update" active="true" deletable="undefined" domain="rel" modifiable="undefined" objectid="7_UV9FQLI11G5GA026LUEL0D1OK4" ordinal="99" orientation="V" type="container" width="undefined"><br /><component action="update" active="true" deletable="undefined" domain="rel" modifiable="undefined" objectid="7_UV9FQLI11G5GA026LUEL0D1OK2" ordinal="99" skinref="K_UV9FQLI11G5GA026LUEL0D10E1" type="control" width="undefined" uniquename="wps.t.Selfcare"><br /><portletinstance action="update" domain="rel" objectid="5_UV9FQLI11G5GA026LUEL0D1OK6" portletref="3_UV9FQLI11G5GA026LUEL0D1GQ5"><br /></component><br /></component><br /></component>


3. Save and close the file.


4. Open this xml file into the portal by navigating to Administration->WebSphere Portal->Portal Settings->Import XML->


Browse the xml file on your system and click on the import button. See for the message successfully imported.
5. Open the Default.jsp file in your custom theme in a text editor. In the appropriate place where your "Edit My Profile" link should appear, add the tags shown below.


• The contentNode attribute must contain the custom unique name of the 'Edit My Profile' page, i.e., "wps.Selfcare".


• The compositionNode attribute must contain the new custom unique name you just added via XMLAccess, i.e., "wps.t.Selfcare".
<portal-navigation:urlgeneration contentnode="wps.Selfcare" compositionnode="wps.t.Selfcare" portletwindowstate="Maximized" themetemplate=""><portal-navigation:urlparam type="render" name="ao" value="thm"><portal-navigation:urlparam type="render" name="OCN" value="ibm.portal.Home.Welcome"><a id="manageProfileLink" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8193607375900156692&postID=5962854348205659357"><portal-fmt:text key="'link.selfcare'" bundle="'nls.engine'/"></portal-fmt:text></a></portal-navigation:urlparam>


6. Save and close Default.jsp. Test the new "Edit My Profile" link to confirm that it works as expected.


Note: This procedure will not work in a portlet. You need to use the URL generation services to create links in the portlet to the page or other portlets.

IBM Updates WebSphere Portlet Factory

IBM has released latest version 6.1.2 of Websphere Portlet Factory to bring enhancements that will allow developers to get Web 2.0 applications up and running quicker than before. It runs on all the major operating systems and runs on websphere application server 6 & 7.

More details can be found at http://www.itjungle.com/fhs/fhs011309-story08.html