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Overview of Oracle WebCenter and Web 2.0 Services
Oracle WebCenter is an integrated, standards-based, user interaction suite that includes a set of Web 2.0 services.  WebCenter is used to develop task-oriented user experiences for transactional applications, composite SOAs, enterprise portals, and Web sites.  It includes a pre-packaged infrastructure to enable content integration, content management, Web publishing, search, and application customizations.  It allows for heterogeneous systems to be leveraged directly to integrate systems, documents, information, and processes into a common user interface.  WebCenter enables people to share information within their enterprise using their Web 2.0 services, which include discussions, wiki pages, and RSS feeds.  It also allows them to compose mashups and integrate presence, instant messaging, and Voice over IP (VOIP).  Some people think of it as an enterprise framework and others feel it is a set of services.  The reality is that it is both.

Framework
Application development in the Oracle Application Server environment – and its underlying proprietary nature – has morphed into an open, standards-based, industrial-strength enterprise Web application environment that addresses all aspects of both development and production deployment challenges.

Oracle realized when moving application development to a more common ground that first there has to be a destination; the WebCenter architecture encapsulates SOA, deployment, Oracle’s home-grown successes, and open standards.  The WebCenter framework is composed of a set of key technologies.

JSF at the Core
The framework (called Oracle Application Development Framework or Oracle ADF for short) has been designed for JSF developers to consume parts directly without having to make an a priori choice of whether to build a transactional app, a composite SOA, a portal, or a Web site.  Developers simply add the capabilities they need to their application and the dependencies are then added to their J2EE application.  For example, if the developer requires portlets inside of his application, the producers are registered inside of JDeveloper, and then added to the JSF application.  The runtime libraries get added to the deployment descriptor and the application is ready for deployment. The application is managed and maintained as any other J2EE app.  If portlets are no longer needed, they are simply removed from the application and the dependencies and capabilities are no longer deployed as part of the application.  This enables M&S Consulting to learn one framework and support many different requirements.    

The JSF architecture also provides both the code of the running application as well as a description of the application.  This XML description of the application provides developers with a targeted set of UIs or wizards to quickly lay out components.  This XML description also allows for the customizations of the applications to be stored separately from the base code of the application.  For WebCenter, the customizations can be stored at the application level and/or within the individual portlets for user personalizations.  This way, patches or upgrades to the application can be deployed without overwriting business user customizations.  Most other systems merge the customizations directly into the deployed application, which requires lengthy merges of all the customizations into the new base application.  This is both time-consuming and error prone.  WebCenter’s approach provides a more productive way forward.

JSR-301 to Provide a Foundation for the Future
Oracle has also recognized that many integration efforts require a portion of an existing application to be exposed as a portlet or have a separate project to build out these portlets.  Oracle has submitted their new proposal as JSR-301, a way to expose a portion of a JSF application as a standards-based portlet. 

Portlet Standards JSR-168 and WSRP Are Essential
An essential part of the framework includes support for standards-based portlets that support both JSR-168 and WSRP 1.0.  WebCenter includes production support for WSRP 2.0 that enables portlet-to-portlet communication to build “in-context” applications, so portlets for showing pending approvals and business analytic charts can be passed parameters so they only show the relevant (in-context) information for that manager’s department.  In keeping with its past, Oracle has also provided support for JPDK portlets.

Content Integration Through JCR-1.0 and JSR-227
Every application that we work on requires some form of content integration.  This is where we leverage Oracle’s implementation of another key standard – JCR 1.0.  It allows us to develop one user interface, and then at deployment time (or runtime), switch the back-end to Oracle ContentDatabase,  EMC Documentum, MS Sharepoint, or IBM Notes/Domino. There is support for a file system adapter so developers can work at home without having to install a back-end content repository.  The JCR standard is not the easiest to implement and that is why Oracle’s implementation of a data control (JSR 227) on top of the JCR standard lets us complete our work quickly without having to get into the weeds of these interfaces.

To integrate processes, the WebCenter framework leverages Oracle’s SOA suite and other products that leverage the BPEL standard.  There is a core worklist portlet that can be added directly into a JSF application.

Security Is Critical
Oracle WebCenter leverages JAAS security directly so that any back-end identity store can be used. Enterprise users and roles can be attached to specific pages directly inside of the JDeveloper environment. WebCenter leverages a Java-based Credential Store to provide a single sign-on experience so end users don’t have to remember multiple passwords.  WebCenter can also take advantage of services protected by WS-Security so that integrating existing applications and services follows a standards-based approach as well.

Web 2.0 Services
Discussions for Asynchronous Conversations
The WebCenter discussions service allows you to quickly deploy discussion forums for users to collaborate in a UI and environment that is consistent with your organization as well as familiar in functionality to other forums your users may have used elsewhere. 

There are many features that one should consider when deploying discussions.  To view these features go to http://www.jivesoftware.com/products/forums/questions/fullist.jsp.

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