Re: Is this really new ?

Booth

The most obvious downside is that, as the manual says -

"The minimum hardware requirements for WebSphere Portal Express V6 on i5/OS
are:

Processor POWER5™ System i models with at least 3800 CPW. Production
environments need to consider servers with a higher commercial
processing workload (CPW) rating.

Physical memory 5 GB at a minimum. Production environments and environments
featuring multiple profiles require more memory.

Disk A minimum of 6 disk arms is recommended.

You must properly size your System i machine before deploying WebSphere
Portal Express."


My immediate reaction is that this is surely extreme bloatware. This minimum
hardware requirement means that companies with smaller or older iSeries
cannot consider it and those with Power5 systems will probably have to
upgrade.

What on earth does it do to require such resources? I regard 3800 CPW as
a powerful machine - my system runs quite happily in 5250 mode on 25CPW
interactive with several users with plenty of CPU capacity to spare. Of
course my new CGIDEV2 version will not require interactive CPW. The total
object code of the main programs of my system, used for both development and
production environments, is only 6Mb (NOT Gb!). This is driven by my
business model file of 44Mb. This defines many complex applications. Does
anyone know why WebSphere Portal Express consumes so much resource, even on
a development machine?

I have never studied Portals in any detail but one thing that they can
provide is a single sign on for access of multiple iSeries applications. I
have done this in my 5250 version using OS/400 group jobs for many years and
this works very well. However, CGIDEV2 doesn't allow the use of group jobs
so, when I have finished the current CGIDEV2 work, I will have to think of
another way of doing this.

A portal is also supposed to improve programmer productivity for web
application development. I believe that I have already achieved that using
my own method without the massive overhead of the IBM portal.

The IBM redbook "WebSphere Portal Express and Express Plus V5 for the IBM
eServer iSeries Server " states that " Navigation on a sophisticated dynamic
Web site, which is rich in interactive content, can add significant effort
to the development process. If a Web page can appear in many sections of a
Web site, the programmer must keep track of where they are, determine where
a page is being displayed, and generate dynamic links to control the
navigation." I can do all that to, using the facilities of my Neural
Database.

I have not yet attempted to include feeds such as stock prices, etc. but I
feel sure that I could do this without WebSphere Portal Express.

So, for me at least, all I can see is downside - no doubt someone will tell
what the upside is.

Rob




2009/1/31 Booth Martin <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

What is the downside to a portal, as offered in V6?

Nathan Andelin wrote:

From: Rob Dixon

'>Is anyone interested in trying to agree a design for an

improved, standard AS/400 Web/5250 interface?

You just delineated a number of good UI ideas. Your idea for a command

line intrigued me. Aside from the standard browser address bar, I don't
recall seeing command lines in Web applications. But I've thought about it.
I've always liked the IBM i command line.

Perhaps not a full command line. But with a menuing system, each menu

item might have a unique ID. WRK.100 (Work Request System), PRJ.100
(Project Management System), DAY.100 (Daily Planner), TIM.100 (Time Entry &
Maintenance), CUS.100 (Customer Entry & Maintenance), etc. So what about a
prompt that launches an instance of an application in a portal frame by
entering, say WRK.100 - if the user is authorized to that menu item?

Nathan.





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Booth Martin
http://www.Martinvt.com
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