JASIG uPortal at UWEau Claire

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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
Campus Web Council of Wisconsin July 26, 2001
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
What is a Portal?

• Gateway
• A portal is an interface to information from a
  single log-on procedure (single sign-on or sso)

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
What is a Portal?

• Customized information
• Information is specific to the particular
  individual. For a student this might be his/her
  course list, grade list or bill. For an advisor
  this might be a list of students assigned to
  him/her. For a staff member this might be budget
  reports for accounts he/she has authority for

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
What is a Portal?

• Personalized information
• Users can tailor the portal to their particular
  tastes or needs by subscribing to optional
  resources (channels) or changing the look of
  their site

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
What makes JA-SIG uPortal special?

• Uportal is free, sharable portal software under
  development by institutions of higher education
• uPortal is an open-standard effort using Java,
  XML, JSP and J2EE
• Because it is java-based, it is platform
  independent
• It is a framework that allows you to easily
  plug-in your applications
• JA-SIG conferences and uPortal training offered
• Interactive Business Solutions, Inc.(IBS)
  provides consulting services
• http//www.ja-sig.org/

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
Technical Information

• JA-SIG uPortal uses a variety of web
  technologies
• Java
• JSP
• Java servlets
• Java applets
• Html
• Css
• Xml
• Xslt (for xml transformation to html)
• Database backend (but not restricted to)

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
Technical Information

• Default setup is configured to run using free
  software
• Apache Web Server
• Tomcat servlet container (software to run
  servlets)
• Hypersonic Database

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
Technical Information

• UW-Eau Claire configuration
• IIS Web Server
• Allaire Jrun (software to run servlets)
• Microsoft SQL Server

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
uPortal Demonstration

• Basic usage
• User points to portal address. Guest portal is
  displayed. User logs in to login channel window.
  If authenticated, the users portal profile is
  loaded, displaying their custom portal
• Applications, games, webmail

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
uPortal Demonstration

• Navigation
• Tabs
• Customization
• Color
• Layout
• Channels
• Channel subscription
• Channel publishing
• Channel types
• Temporary portal location 137.28.94.1508101/de
  stin/

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
How JA-SIG uPortal handles security

• Roles
• Users are assigned roles
• For example Student, Faculty, Publisher and
  Administrator
• Each role is represented by a set of channels
  that the role is allowed to subscribe to
• For example Faculty is allowed to subscribe to
  mainframe application channel while students are
  not. Publishers are allowed to create new
  channels for a role

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
How JA-SIG uPortal handles security

• Devices
• Default configuration
• Uses a database backend to store users,
  passwords, roles, profiles and channels
• UW-Eau Claire configuration
• Uses University of Hawaii LDAP implementation to
  authenticate users using Windows active directory
  services. Other information still stored in a
  relational database

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
The myth of the single sign-on

• uPortal does not provide SSO capabilities
• A user must enter credential information every
  time a channel needs authentication
• A few SSO possibilities are being discussed
• Database authentication (default)
• Kerberos
• PubCookie

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
Hardware Implications

• Disk space
• Cycles
• Scalability
• Management

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
UW-Eau Claire Status

• Plan to finish pilot this fall to demo to IT
  staff
• Will evaluate the product and its future
• Working with University of Hawaii to use LDAP
  security provider to connect to active directory
• SSO is a future feature
• Will upgrade to uPortal 2.0 as it matures
• Beta version (Sonora) just released July 23

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
Other uPortal sites (9 currently listed)

• University of British Columbia (production)
• http//www.itservices.ubc.ca/myubc/
• University of Hawaii (demo)
• http//my.hawaii.edu8080/index.jsp
• Princeton University (demo)
• http//asigdev.princeton.edu82/portal/index.jsp

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
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JA-SIG uPortal at UW-Eau Claire
Questions?

• Justin Bartlett bartlejt_at_uwec.edu
• Lillian Hillis hillislf_at_uwec.edu

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire