Novell Portal Services at UGA

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Novell Portal Services at UGA

• Michael Weaver
• UGA Network Specialist
• weaver_at_arches.uga.edu

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Overview

• What is NPS?
• The technology of NPS
• eDirectory Integration
• Gadgets
• Our NPS plan

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What is NPS?

• A suite of tools and an environment to implement
  and deploy a custom portal solution
• Implemented in Java
• Servlets, JSPs
• Cross Platform
• NetWare, Windows, Solaris, Linux
• Standards Based
• XML, HTML, LDAP

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NPS Technology Structure

• NPS runs under a servlet engine
• Jrun, Tomcat, WebSphere, possibly others
• Portal pages are defined as schemes
• Base scheme is branding scheme
• Other schemes layered on based on various rules
  or inheritance
• Schemes contain gadgets
• Gadgets are java code that provides content
• E-mail, news, remote content, etc
• Novells eDirectory provides the back-end
• User database, authentication, preferences
• Accessed by NPS with LDAP (SSL available)

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Potential Flow of content
Portal Server
HTTPS
HTTP
Secure LDAP
Remote Content
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Integration with eDirectory
UGA
Users
Dept.
Portal
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More Integration

• By layering schemes one can
• Create a custom experience based on who you are
• Delegate management of content to providers
• Comp Sci controls their scheme
• Final presentation to the user is dynamic
• Portal groups can be used instead of NDS Groups
• Dynamic groups that are evaluated on-the-fly
• Membership is done via rules
• Allows membership based on user attributes
• Very speedy

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Gadgets shipped with NPS

• Mail system integration
• GroupWise
• Exchange
• Generic POP/IMAP
• General HTML gadgets
• HTML or iFrame
• Remote content import
• RSS, XML
• Portal Administration
• Admin tool
• Self registration gadget

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Our Environment

• Central NDS tree based off of eDirectory 8.5.1
• Approx. 40k active user accounts
• Many different student web services available
• Central e-mail running on a AIX/DCE cluster

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Our Plan

• Provide a one-stop shop for access to web-based
  services
• Integrate e-mail
• Integrate WebCT
• Allow for single logon
• Provide web disk access

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Our Portal Server Design

• NPS on Linux
• Easier for our web developers to work with
• Apache/Tomcat environment
• NetWare for File and Directory service
• Use Network File Gadget
• Possible shift to new NetWare 6 offerings
• eDirectory hosting
• SSL armor for all communications
• Custom code possibly needed for WebCT integration

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Q A