JBoss Portal 2.2 Advances Open Source Portal Software for Enterprise Deployment

1 January 1970

JBoss(R), Inc., the Professional Open Source company, today announced JBoss Portal 2.2, the latest version of its open source, Java portal product. A core piece of the JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite (JEMS(TM)), the first open source platform for SOA (service-oriented architecture), JBoss Portal 2.2 adds greater simplicity to development and deployment, more standards support and new features for security and clustering that appeal to the enterprise market.

With JBoss Portal 2.2, JBoss is delivering on its roadmap to build a broad-scope open source portal product that enterprises can leverage as a foundation for an SOA. Gartner projects that enterprise portals will be the first major application of SOA concepts for more than 50 percent of enterprises through 2007. This places JBoss Portal, already the fastest growing open source Java portal in terms of adoption, as one of the top portal choices for enterprises because of JBoss' installation base, expansive partner ecosystem and track record for technology innovation.

"This latest release of JBoss Portal is the culmination of efforts between JBoss core developers and the community, which includes our customers, partners and contributors," said Pierre Fricke, director of product management, JBoss, Inc. "With enterprises shifting away from traditional applications to a more agile SOA, JBoss Portal provides an attractive, lower cost alternative to proprietary portals. By choosing JBoss Portal, enterprises are choosing a JEMS product, which means they will always have flexibility and choice when it comes to transforming their business through SOA, and it's all backed by world-class support and services."

Like all JEMS products, JBoss Portal is supported by a large and vibrant community that helps drive new features and quality assurance throughout the development lifecycle. The community is also enhancing JEMS platform with related technologies such as portlets and content management systems that enable enterprises to pick and choose the extensions that make the most sense for their portal applications.

"Cignex helps customers implement the right open-source technologies to solve their business problems. JBoss Portal 2.2 significantly expands its enterprise-level features, making it an attractive solution for customers looking for a standards-based presentation and content management solution," said Munwar Shariff, CTO of Cignex Technologies, a certified JBoss systems integrator partner. "Cignex is currently an active participant in the JBoss Portal community and already working to extend JBoss Portal with our customers. We look forward to helping more enterprises implement this latest version as a part of their total solution."

New Features & Functionality

JBoss Portal 2.2 offers new enhancements in the areas of standards support, ease of development and deployment and enterprise functionality. These include:

-- Content Management - The JBoss Portal 2.2 content management system (CMS) object model is based on the Java Content Repository (JSR-170). The enhanced CMS architecture enables portal developers to easily swap the CMS with other Java Content Repository compatible content management systems. JBoss Portal 2.2 also supports multiple languages within the CMS.

-- Security - New features include authorization based on Java security framework and the Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) specification. Integration points are included for identity providers using interfaces defined by the Java Authorization Contract for Containers (JACC) specification.

-- Advanced Interportlet Communication - The portlet API has been enhanced to provide a navigable graph of portal objects at run time that portlets can use and link to. JBoss Portal portlets can create links to other objects such as a page, portal or window. A portlet can utilize interportlet communication to adapt its content to specific contexts within the portal environment.

-- Failover/Clustering - JBoss Portal 2.2 introduces portlet clustering, which provides greater availability of portlet sessions through portlet session replication. This differentiates JBoss Portal from other open source portals that utilize web containers for their high availability platform.

-- Themes - Support now includes content-specific themes, internationalized themes and pluggable themes. JBoss Portal 2.2 adds layout and theme wizards for administrators and more robust layout rendering capabilities, which will be extended to allow for exotic layouts.

-- Personal Dashboard Enhancements - JBoss Portal 2.2 enables portlets to be created or destroyed by administrators or users at runtime. In addition, the advanced personalization features allow users to change themes, layouts and portlet behavior at runtime giving users and administrators greater flexibility, higher portal availability, and easier portal operations.

-- Admin GUI Interface - An improved graphical user interface ensures that users no longer need to manually edit portal XML descriptors.

-- Search Engine-friendly URLs - User and search engine friendly URLs are generated by a new command mapper. This feature ensures that JBoss Portal deployments are more easily referenced by search engines.

In addition, JBoss Portal 2.2 users now have a growing library of portlets developed by the JBoss community to choose from. The launch of PortletSwap (www.portletswap.com) in October has fueled a growing number of contributed portlets, themes and layouts for use with JBoss Portal. These Java Portlet specification (JSR-168) portlets will make it easier than ever for developers to build and deploy on JBoss Portal.

The JBoss Portal community web pages and more information may be found at http://www.jboss.com/products/jbossportal.

About JBoss Portal

JBoss Portal provides an open source and standards-based framework for centralized and secure access to applications and information, which fosters collaboration, streamlines business processes and reduces costs. Portals developed with JBoss Portal can be customized based on users, roles, security needs and administrative settings. By providing an integrated and secure user interface across applications, JBoss Portal makes it easier for users to leverage existing applications, increasing ROI and reducing the need for new application and integration development. By deploying JBoss Portal on JBoss Application Server, access to dynamic information is made easy and performance and scalability are assured. For more information, visit www.jboss.com/products/jbossportal.

About JBoss, Inc.

JBoss, Inc., the global leader in open source middleware, offers simply the better way to transform businesses through a service-oriented architecture (SOA). As the leading open source platform for SOA, JEMS (JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite) delivers proven performance in mission-critical environments and is backed by world-class support and service--all at a dramatically lower cost structure than proprietary systems. Fortune 500 companies such as Continental Airlines, MCI and Starwood Hotels & Resorts rely on Professional Open Source from JBoss, Inc. Certified partners offering JEMS and JBoss Subscriptions include Dell, HP, NEC, Novell, Sun Microsystems and Unisys. For more information, visit www.jboss.com.

JBoss and JEMS are registered trademarks or trademarks of JBoss, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks herein are property of their respective owners.