This article is intended for those interested in learning more about using Oracle 10g Application Server Portal (Oracle 10g AS Portal) to build their enterprise portal. To continue leveraging the power of a well adopted, but stagnant corporate intranet, a growing trend among companies, both small and large, is the implementation of an enterprise web portal.

Oracle9 i AS Portal, introduced as WebDB in 1999, provided developers HTML-based tools for developing and deploying web-ready dynamic web sites and applications. Enterprise portals are developed and deployed in a browser-based environment. This early version of the enterprise portal included wizards for developing applications and incorporating "servlets" (today referred to as Portlets), and the ability to integrate and share existing web content. Oracle9 i AS Portal introduced the concept of integrating Reports and Discoverer through servlets deployed via the Portal interface. Oracle9 i AS Portal also granted web developers the ability to create web-ready content that was designed to be user-customizable.

As enterprise applications evolved from a client/server model to an Internet computing architecture and rapidly grew in complexity, many information technology departments deployed enterprise applications using a fragmented, piecemeal middleware infrastructure. The resulting middleware complexity represents nearly 50% of the information technology costs in organizations today. Furthermore, 60% of organizations consider their enterprise application infrastructure an impediment to their ability to meet business requirements. Savvy enterprises are evolving their applications from monolithic, closed systems to modular, open systems with well-defined interfaces. This new application architecture, called Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), represents a fundamental shift in the way new applications are designed and developed, and the way in which they are integrated with existing legacy systems and business applications. To meet the challenge of middleware complexity, Oracle created an entirely new class of systems software—an Application Platform Suite (APS)—a comprehensive and integrated enterprise application infrastructure based on SOA .

Oracle recognized that organizations today need a more comprehensive and coherent platform to develop, deploy, and manage enterprise portals. Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 , the third generation of Oracle's APS, offers the industry's leading enterprise portal solution, Oracle Portal 10.1.4. Oracle Portal provides users centralized access to data, applications, and business processes. While most enterprise portals are merely access points to information, Portal takes it a step further and provides access to web services, systems and applications. Oracle Portal also introduced the concept of process-centric portals by integrating its Business Process Management features with enterprise Portal.

According to Oracle, the key goal of Oracle Portal 10.1.4 was to enable enterprises to seamlessly fuse their enterprise applications, business intelligence applications, business process systems, and Web services into a single, highly productive workplace.

Oracle Portal's self-service content management and publishing capabilities have been enhanced even further and have grown to include tight integration with the Microsoft Office and the Windows desktop. Oracle Portal is based on a standards-based architecture that supports complex and highly available deployments.

Oracle Portal is part of the middle-tier Oracle Application Server.

Oracle Portal 10.1.4 New Features. Author: Christian Hauser April 2006