Web site construction often resembles a film set - the external facade is beautiful, while behind the scenes lies a sprawling expanse of data sources, networks, applications and custom code.
In order source key information for the design of the web site, a robust infrastructure is required behind the scenes, says Francois Marais, product manager at Oracle Corporation South Africa.
"Oracle`s Internet Platform solution is designed for such application integration," he says. "Based on hub-spoke-adapter architecture, Oracle uses XML technology to extract information from legacy and ERP applications such as SAP, rendering the information through "Portlets" on the desired Web site."
Portlets are re-usable information components used to package commonly requested corporate information, such as budget updates, employee headcount or directories, and external information, like stock quotes, weather or news.
"Portlets allow organisations to package all their vital information and applications for the rapid assembly of e-business portals," explains Marais. "They are collected together into corporate libraries for users to pick-and-choose from when building their custom portal sites."
In order to deliver business intelligence to the portal, Oracle offers a Data Warehousing infrastructure allowing the consolidation of information from many different sources and the dissemination of information through its Business Intelligence Tools - Oracle Reports, Discoverer and Express.
These tools have been enhanced to generate thus simplifying the incorporation of business intelligence information into Portal sites.
Portlets are simply a set of standard Java API`s wrapping any existing information or application. The Portlet runs on the server and delivers a live area of HTML which can then be placed on the Portal site.
Central to Oracle`s e-business portal strategy is Oracle`s Portal Framework, which enables companies to host Portlets.
According to Marais, Oracle is poised to make available a complete range of packaged portals built atop the Oracle Portal Framework which will deliver a single integrated view of Enterprise and Customer Relationship Management applications for specific organisational roles such as employees, sales people, customers and suppliers.
These packaged portals can be customised with Portlets to meet individual needs using the Oracle Portal Framework.
"Oracle`s Portal Framework brings order to the chaos, and through Portlets, gives users a single view into all the applications and information they need to do their job," he adds.
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