Next Generation Application Integration: From Simple Information to Web Services

Portal Power

The use of portals to integrate enterprises has many advantages. The primary one is that there is no need to integrate back-end systems directly between companies or within enterprises, which eliminates the associated cost or risk. What's more, you usually don't have to worry about circumventing firewalls or application-to-application security, because portals typically do nothing more than Web-enable existing systems from a single enterprise. With portals, you simply connect to each back-end system through a point of integration (user interface, database, application server, etc.) and externalize the information into a common user interface (Web browser). Of course, portals themselves are applications and must be designed, built, ...