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ID506: Web 2.0, AJAX, and REST in IBM WebSphere Portal

Thomas Schaeck, STSM

Lead Architect Quickr and WebSphere Portal Web 2.0

Stephan Hesmer

WebSphere Portal Web 2.0 Architect and Lead Developer

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What is Web 2.0, AJAX and REST ?

What is Web 2.0 ?

A term coined by Tim O‘Reilly (see http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html )

Increasingly used for next generation World Wide Web Applications and Services

Web 2.0 has many aspects:Business Models that survived and have promise for the future

Approaches such as services instead of products, the Web as a platform, ...

Concepts such as folksonomies, syndication, participation, reputation, ....

Technologies such as AJAX, REST, Tags, Microformats, ...

And many others ...

How do Web 2.0 Sites differ from „Web 1.0“ Sites ?

Strict „Web 1.0“ site „Web Master“ runs web site,

users consume Few content editors Web site provides content and

applications for users View-only markup Only human users Accumulates relatively small

amounts of information and content

Fixed categories / Taxonomy Unidirectional

Modern „Web 2.0“ site Users collectively contribute to the web

site, they don‘t just consume Every user is a content editor and rater Web site provides content, applications,

and collective contributions of all users Semantically tagged markup Humans and applications as „users“ Accumulates huge amounts of

information and content FlexibleTagging / Folksonomy Bi-directional

WebSite

WebSite

DataData

App

App

App

App

Observations

Web 2.0 consists of social and technical aspects

The social aspects of Web 2.0 are much more fundamental than the technologies

Web 2.0 Sites can derive huge value from their user community if they achieve critical mass Some Web 2.0 companies have achieved extremely high market captialization (Google ($109,66 bn) bought YouTube for $1,65 bn)

The Web 2.0 Site itself often only provides the infrastructure and guidelines for user participation

The community then adds value to the site, e.g. by writing articles, posting videos, sharing bookmarks, etc

Typically, these Web 2.0 sites have APIs for use by developers of mashup applications acting as multipliers

Web 2.0 user interfaces typically apply the AJAX technology in order to achieve more responsive UIs

What is AJAX ?

AJAX is the acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML

The purpose is to create more dynamic and responsive web pages

It is also about building web clients in a Service Oriented Architecturethat can connect to any kind of server: J2EE, PHP, ASP.Net, Ruby on Rails, etc.

AJAX involves existing technology & standards: JavaScript and XML

Pattern: Page view displayed in a web browser retrieves data or markup fragmentsfrom a service and refreshes just a part of the page

AJAX is non-trivial, it requires deep and broad skills in web development ...... but the benefits to be gained can be huge compared to classic web applications

AJAX enables major improvements in responsiveness and performance of web applications, e.g. used at Yahoo! Mail, Google Maps, live.com, and others

AJAX is NOT hype – it is very real and very useful for highly interactive applications

AJAX compared to classic Web UIs

Browser Server Browser Server

service

In the typical web application, each request causes a complete refresh of the browser page

An Ajax application begins the same way.

After the initial page loads, Javascript code retrieves additional data in the background and updates only specific sections of the page

Ajax forces you to think about discrete services. It may drive requirements for new services from your IT department

What is REST ?

REST is the acronym for „Representational State Transfer“

It is the architectural model on which the World Wide Web is based

Principles of REST Resource centric approach All relevant resources are addressable via URIs Uniform access via HTTP – GET, POST, PUT, DELETE Content type negotiation allows retrieving alternative representations from same URI

REST style services are easy to access from code running in web browsers, any other client or servers

very popular in the context of AJAX can take full advantage of the WWW caching infrastructure can serve multiple representations of the same resource

More info: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/top.htm

Web 2.0 Concepts that are interesting for enterprise use

Self-establishing Communities collaborating around topics of common business interest

Support User Contribution, treat users as co-authors and leverages their skills better

Accumulation of user knowledge to make apps smarter the more people use them

Enable users to add value by adding meta data, e.g. rate, tag, bookmark, comment

Allow users to Take Control and let them make applications most useful to them

Separate User Interface from Services to make services re-usable

Fine grained access to data supporting mashups

Mashups combining existing services into new, useful applications joining information

Situational Development of applications through line of business can help make businesses more agile

AJAX to enable rich, interactive, highly responsive Web UI

Use of Semantic Tags and Microformats to enable dynamic augmentation with contextual menus or information

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Web 2.0 in WebSphere Portal

IBM WebSphere Portal is the User Interface to SOA

MS Office &Windows

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WebBrowser

RichClients

MobileClient

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WebSphere Portal 6 Overview

• Instant messaging• Team Rooms

• Electronic Forms • Workflow Builder

WebSphere

•Web Content Management •Portal Document Manager

•Workflow Engine

WebSphere

• Presentation• Customization• Application aggregation• Java Portlet API• Use of 100’s of portlets• WSRP support

•Admin•Single sign on•Search•Personalization•Portlet Generation Tool (Portlet Factory)

• Composite Applications• Cluster Support• Application Server• Database• LDAP Directory Server

WebSphere

WebSphere Portal – An Example

w3 portal for all IBM employees

> 300,000 users

Portlets provide essential information

Highly personalized - displays the right info to the right users at the right time

End-user customizable - users can create custom pages

Has become a key tool for every IBMer

Major productivity gainTargeted info delivery to usersUsers can easily find the apps they need

Openness

Portals are the way to provide governed business mashups combining public information, enterprise apps and data

Critical enabler:

Standards based access to integration and innovation

Thin Clients

Mobile Clients

Rich Clients

role-based

composite applications

in context

process-

driven

Security-Rich Composite application or view, that assembles and delivers

services in the form of portlets in the context of a business process

Web 2.0 / AJAX / REST in WP and related Products - Today

WP 6 allows User Contribution to portal sites through both WCM and PDM

WP 6 enables Situational Development through Composite Application Templates and through Lotus Designer / Portlet Factory / Forms Designer

WP 6 allows users Taking Control of their pages and choose content (if allowed by admin)

Custom AJAX Portlets can be written today to run on WebSphere Portal,e.g. using the Dojo framework and widgets or the AJAX support in RAD

WP 6.0 exploits AJAX for context menus, search menu, and some admin portlets

WebSphere Portlet Factory can generate AJAX Portlets with incremental update and autocomplete

IBM is strongly engaged in Dojo (see http://dojotoolkit.org/ ) as major contributor

Disclaimer

The following includes material that is directional in nature and does not imply any product plan commitment on the part of IBM.

Screenshots in this presentation are from prototypes and likely to change significantly by the time products are released

New Web 2.0 Work under development for WebSphere Portal

REST Services to open up portal for mashup applications – services for server persistence, portlet settings and user profile access to simplify Web 2.0 application development

AJAX Portlet Programming Model Extensions based on Dojo+IBM Extensions

Client Side Aggregation and Customization using REST Services for better UX and improved performance

AJAX Client Side Feed Consumption to enable highly efficient integration of information through feeds (Atom and RSS)

Semantic Tags to allow smart markup to enable value add by portal, e.g. dynamic menus

Client Side C2A/Property Broker and Drag & Drop based on Semantic Tags integrated with server side property broker and C2A support to enable cross-portlet interaction locally in the browser as well as with server side code

Sample AJAX Portlets with source showcasing the new capabilities to demonstrate and give samples to customers for how to exploit all the above

Integration, Aggregation and Customization of Google Gadgets

REST style Web Services exposing Portal to Mashups

Goals: Separate portal user experience from portal data Expose relevant data separately for use by other apps ( Mashups)

Public REST style Web services for Access to Navigation Node Hierarchy Access to Page Definitions Access to User Profiles Access to generic Content Persistence Access to markup fragments of individual portlets

Mashups can use these services to implement custom applications leveraging portal infrastructure services

WebSphere Portal’s Web 2.0 Client Side Aggregation uses these services as well

WebSpherePortal

Emerging WPLC Services&Feeds and Application Examples

Portal Services

User Service

Persistence Service

Contacts Service

DominoMail Services

Calendar Services

Sametime

Portlet Service

Awareness Service

Conference Service

IM Service

QuickrDocuments Services

Team Space Services

Custom Situational Application:Problem tracking application

allowing to see author presence and location in map and contact via IM

Custom Situational Application:Simple AJAX Mail / Cal summary

views with awareness

Product:WebSphere Portal

Client Side Aggregation

Search Service

Geneva Portlets, Notes Plugin,

Sametime Plugin, Desktop Integration

Product:Common PIM Portlets

for Mail and Calendar Access

ConnectionsPersona, Community Services

Activity, Blog Services

Internet ServicesMaps…

Web 2.0 Fragment Model

Simple and extensible Web 2.0 fragment programming model

Agnostic of how fragments are generated, may be generated by portlets on WebSphere Portal generated by PHP code on Web.0 or PHP servers generated by .NET servers

Can start simple, with option to grow more sophisticated

Basic fragments – HTML only Slightly more advanced – add use of Semantic Tags More advanced – add use of Dojo and custom JavaScript

Fragments can use public JavaScript interfacesto conveniently invoke WebSphere Portal’s REST-style Web services

Web 2.0 Fragment Programming Model

Web 2.0 Fragment

Semantic Tags

Dojo Widget Markup

JavaScript Functions

REST Calls to Portal Services User Profile Access Settings Access Persistence Service Access

REST Calls to other Services, e.g. other WPLC services Weather Info, News, Sports, … CRM, HR, … Services etc

Web 2.0 Client Side Aggregation

Browser-side Aggregation, Navigation and Customization

Superior user experience Highly reactive and direct user interface Many actions possible without server roundtrips Avoids page flickering

Accesses and manipulates portal information through REST services

Renders XML obtained from the server on the browser side

Implemented using AJAX, XML, Dojo, and JavaScript

Improved performance and scalability through Reduced server side processing - offloads rendering to browser Reduced bandwidth requirements between server and browser Reduced client-side processing – mostly fragment reloads, few page reloads Improved cachability, all artifacts can be cached independently

AJAX based Client Side Aggregation in the Web Browser

Services created with Google Gadgets

Atom / RSS Feeds

REST-accessible Markup Fragmentsfrom WP Portlets or any other URL

WSRP Services

Semantic Tags, Context Menus and Drag&DropConference Participants

...

IBMST Thomas SchaeckST 5 Technology Park Dr555-5555ST

Westford, MAST

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Click to dial

Extensible set of tag types such as person, address, phone number, document, ... is used to mark content elements with types (semantic tagging)

Behaviours like e.g. context menus, annotations, highlighting, drag & drop, etc can be applied to everything that is semantically tagged

D&D D&D

Semantic Tags (Portal-Independent Technology)

AJAX based RSS/Atom Feed Consumption

Allow simple consumption and display of Feeds in portal pages

Atom feeds RSS feeds

Implemented using AJAX, Dojo and JavaScript

Gets settings defining the feed to display from portal

Retrieves feeds from origin servers via AJAX proxy

Renders feeds in the browser rather than causing server load

AJAX RSS/Atom Feed Consumption directly from Origin

Google Gadget Integration Enable customers to easily integrate

Google Gadgets into portal pagesFrom an end user perspective, Google

Gadgets integrated in WebSphere Portal behave just like local portlets: viewable and customizable like any local portlet

If allowed by admin, users can drag Generic Gadget Portlets on their pages and select Gadgets to display from the Gadget CatalogGadget Portlet initially lets user select the Gadget to

display from the Gadget CatalogGadget Portlet then displays the selected GadgetUser can view and customize the selected gadget

like any local portlet

Administrators can pre-define Gadget Portlets for the portlet paletteGeneric Gadget Portlet is pre-configured by the

admin to connect it to a certain gadget, e.g. an admin could create a “Map Portlet” by creating a Gadget Portlet and connecting it to the Google Maps Gadget

Users can then select such pre-configured Gadget Portlets from the palette and drag them onto their pages like any local portlet

Google Gadget Integration – A Gadget integrated in WebSphere Portal as a portlet

Google Gadget Integration – Selecting a Gadget to integrate into WebSphere Portal as a portlet

IBM Portlet for Google Gadgets Architecture

IBM Portletfor

Google GadgetsGoogle Gadget

Google RSS Feed listing

available gadgets

View Mode

Customize Mode

Configuration Mode

Customize Mode

View Mode

AJAX Portlets using Dojo

Web 2.0 Portal Architecture

WebSphere Portal Foundation

AJAX FeedConsumer

Connections (Activities, Blue Pages,

Social Bookmarks, Blogs)

AJAX FragmentConsumer

AJAX Programming Model Extensions(Dojo Framework & Widgets + AJAX.0 + REST accessor JS functions + Semantic Tags + Client Side Click-2-Action)

REST style Portal Services(Persistence, User Profiles, Portlet Settings, Navigation, Pages, etc)

Quickr(Wikis, Blogs,

Lists, Doc Libs, Discussions)

ConnectionsPortlets

MyPlacesPortlet

FeedService

HTML+Dojo+JSFragments

(from J2EE,.NET,PHP,HTTP or other Server)

WebSphere Application Server

ClassicJSR 168 Portlets

AJAX enabledJSR 168 Portlets

WSRPConsumer

WSRPService

Conclusion

Web 2.0 is important for the enterprise

AJAX and REST are important technologies related to Web 2.0

IBM uses Web 2.0 concepts and technologies sucessfully in its intranet

WebSphere Portal already today in WP 6 provides Web 2.0 capabilities and leverages Web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX

Future releases of WebSphere Portal will add more Web 2.0 features and expand use of AJAX and REST

WebSphere Portal will integrate with Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr