MashZone NextGen Add-On for Portals Architecture
Integrating MashZone NextGen mashables, mashups and apps into a portal environment provides several benefits:
A simple, but powerful way to consume many common information sources in your portal, including web services, web feeds, relational databases or common business documents
A simple, but powerful mashup capability to filter, combine and transform information to fit your unique needs
A simple way to govern access to information provided by
MashZone NextGen artifacts (mashables, mashups and apps)
The MashZone NextGen Add-On for Portals simplifies the integration process between your portal application and MashZone NextGen. You plug the add-on into your portal application and quickly begin working with MashZone NextGen mashups and apps.
The MashZone NextGen Add-On for Portals is compatible with portals that support Java Portal standards. This add-on can be hosted with your portal server or it can be hosted separately, if the portal server supports WSRP. The following figure shows the basic architecture for this connector:
Portlets
The MashZone NextGen Add-On for Portals is a portlet producer which you integrate with your portal application. You use the MashZone NextGen Add-On for Portals to work with two portlets:
Publish Mashup Portlet: to add
MashZone NextGen mashups to portal pages (as portlet instances). You can also work with
MashZone NextGen mashable information sources using this portlet by creating simple
wrapper mashups that run any mashable information source.
Publish App Portlet: to add
MashZone NextGen apps and workspace apps to portal pages (as portlet instances).
These portlets allow you to discover MashZone NextGen mashups and apps, add them to portal pages and configure them for users. You can also allow users to add portlets, discover MashZone NextGen artifacts or simply customize portlet configuration to meet their own needs.
Authentication and Authorization for MashZone NextGen Artifacts
Authentication for portal users accessing MashZone NextGen artifacts in a portlet depends on how authentication has been configured in MashZone NextGen and your portal. Possible solutions include:
Single Sign-On solution. For SSO, the portlet request to
MashZone NextGen will have information on an existing SSO session which
MashZone NextGen uses to authenticate the portlet user.
SSL/Digital Certificates. For SSL, the portlet request to
MashZone NextGen will have included the user’s digital certificate which
MashZone NextGen uses to authenticate the portlet user.
Username/password credentials. This is the default authentication scheme for
MashZone NextGen.
For user credential authentication, the user must have already logged into MashZone NextGen in their browser to create a valid MashZone NextGen session. MashZone NextGen uses this session information to authenticate the user.
If authentication information is available when portlets request MashZone NextGen apps or mashups, portlet users must have run permissions in MashZone NextGen to view and use the specific MashZone NextGen app or mashup that is configured for that portlet.
If no authentication information is available, MashZone NextGen considers the user a guest. For apps, the specific app used in the portlet must have run permissions that allow guest access. Guest access to mashups, however, is not supported.
