Proven Portals: Best Practices for Planning, Designing, and Developing Enterprise Portals

Chapter Two. Using a Three-Tier Architecture

In this chapter we will delve into the logical architecture that underlies successful portal implementations. Although vendors and designers have a variety of ways to implement portal applications, most center on a basic three-tier architecture: the presentation layer, the application layer, and the information services layer (Figure 2.1). The philosophy behind this breakdown is to separate the major activities of portal applications into logical sections for display, processing logic, and data services. Displays are managed by the presentation tier, processing logic by the application tier, and data services by the enterprise information systems (EIS) tier.

Figure 2.1. The most basic portal architecture ...