WebSphere Portal Administration

Lesson 1. Introduction
Objectives
Topic A: WebSphere Portal software stack and architecture View of the stack
Topic B: WebSphere Portal and the WebSphere Application Server

Lesson 2. Page management
Objectives
Topic A: Navigating and managing WebSphere Portal
Administrative interface
Pages and page hierarchy
Topic B: Creating pages and page management
Designing the page hierarchy
WebSphere Portal nodes
Page layout
Portlets and pages
Page Builder

Lab 2: Exploring portal page hierarchy and portal commands
Objectives
Task 1: Starting and stopping WebSphere Portal
Checking the server status of WebSphere Portal and WebSphere Portal Application Server
Task 2: Signing up as a new user to the portal
Task 3: Exploring the portal Administration area as an administrator
Task 4: Creating a new portal page and placing a portal on it
Customizing the Reminder portlet
Stopping the WebSphere_Portal instance
Task 5: Backing up the WebSphere Portal configuration

Lesson 3. Deploying portlets
Objectives
Topic A: Portlet deployment
Stand-alone environment
Clustered environment
Topic B: Page hierarchy and portlets
Exporting and importing the page hierarchy

Lab 3: Deploying a portlet
Objectives
Task 1: Verifying that WebSphere Portal is started and logging in
Verifying that WebSphere Portal is started
Logging in to WebSphere Portal
Task 2: Deploying a portlet

Lesson 4. WebSphere Portal security management
Objectives
Topic A: Overview of role-based security
Privileges
Traversal
Topic B: Defining the portal resource security mechanism
Defining the portal resource security mechanism
Exploring the resources and roles
Topic C: Blocking propagation and role inheritance
Blocking propagation
Blocking inheritance
Topic D: Access control settings
Initial access control settings
Initial portlet access control settings
Initial page access control settings
Topic E: Granting privileges
Granting privileges to a portlet
Granting different privileges on a single portlet
Topic F: Creating anonymous pages
Analyzing role interactions on pages and Portlets
Topic G: Traversal
The need for traversal
Traversal scenario
Configuring traversal
Topic H: Securing your portal page hierarchy
Setting resource permissions

Lab 4: Implementing security and creating a Developer Administration page
Objectives
Task 1: Verifying that WebSphere Portal is started and logging in
Verifying that WebSphere Portal is started
Logging in to WebSphere Portal
Task 2: Importing the Human Resources page hierarchy
Task 3: Viewing the initial security permissions
Task 4: Setting and verifying page permissions
Task 5: Allowing customization
Task 6: Setting and verifying portlet permissions
Task 7: Configuring traversal permissions
Task 8: Creating an Administration page for developers

Lesson 5. Wikis and blogs
Objectives
Topic A: Page Builder theme and a wiki or blog
Wikis
Blogs
Topic B: Adding a wiki or blog to a page
Adding a wiki to a page
Adding a blog to a page
Topic C: Deleting wiki or blog content
The difference between deleting and purging
Deleting wiki or blog content
Topic D: Purging wiki or blog content
Purging a wiki or blog
Topic E: Assigning access to the wiki or blog
Wiki and blog roles
Configuring access control to wikis or blogs

Lab 5: Setting up a blog and a wiki
Objectives
Task 1: Adding Web Content Management authoring to a base installation
Task 2: Adding a blog
Task 3: Adding a wiki
Task 4: Assigning users rights

Lesson 6 .Tagging and rating
Objectives
Topic A: Tag clouds
Topic B: Public, private, personal, and community tags
Topic C: Statistics
Tagging and rating statics
Sharing tagging and rating data with portlets

Lab 6: Enabling and configuring tagging and rating
Objectives
Task 1: Enabling or disabling tagging and rating for portal users
Task 2: Enabling and adding words to the blacklist
Task 3: Working with whitelist filters

Lesson 7. Attribute-based administration
Objectives
Topic A: Personalization rules
Rules
Exploring campaigns
Topic B: Administering the portal using attribute-based techniques
Access control and visibility rules
Policies
Error condition behavior
Topic C: Defining attribute-based administration
Examining visibility rules
Exploring interactions between security and rules
Handling errors
Topic D: Creating and managing visibility rules
Applying visibility rules to pages and portlets

Lab 7: Creating rules
Objectives
Task 1: Verifying that WebSphere Portal is started and logging in
Verifying that WebSphere Portal is started
Logging in to WebSphere Portal
Task 2: Validating the ability to apply rules to a portlet
Task 3: Working with visibility rules
Creating a visibility rule
Applying the new rule to a portlet
Creating and applying a visibility rule to a page

Lesson 8. Virtual portals and realms
Objectives
Topic A: Virtual portals and multiple realms
Defining virtual portals
Defining realms
Virtual portals with multiple realms
Topic B: VMM realm configuration files
Topic C: Creating a realm
Topic D: Creating a virtual portal
Using the Virtual Portal Manager portlet
Using the ConfigEngine create-virtual-portal task
Topic E: Scoped and non-scoped resources
Defining scoped resources
Defining non-scoped resources
Topic F: Virtual portal provisioning script

Lab 8: Configuring realms and virtual portals
Objectives
Task 1: Creating a new user realm
Task 2: Creating a virtual portal

Lesson 9. IBM Syndicated Feed Portlet
Objectives
Topic A: IBM Syndicated Feed Portlet
Proxy for the portlet
Configuration options for administrators
Management implications
Topic B: Feeds
SSL feeds
Client-side aggregation
Cookies and feeds
Portlet proxies

Lab 9: Working with the IBM Syndicated Feed Portlet
Objectives
Task 1: Adding and configuring a syndicated portlet

Lesson 10. Mashup integration
Objectives
Topic A: Defining mashups and iWidgets
Mashups
iWidgets
WebSphere Portal and iWidgets
Adding an iWidget to a page
Topic B: Integrating mashups
Enabling the Mashups tab
Adding a new widget

Lab 10: Installing and configuring an iWidget
Objectives
Considerations
Task 1: Enabling mashup integration
Task 2: Adding an iWidget
Task 3: Getting
started with customizing iWidget attributes

Lesson 11. WebSphere Portal search
Objectives
Topic A: Comparing search options
Search collections
Topic B: Working with WebSphere Portal search
Search scope
Search links
External Search Results portlet

Lab 11: Using external search engines
Objectives
Task 1: Configuring external search scopes
Task 2: Configuring the External Search Results portlet
Updating the Ajax proxy
Configuring the External Search Result portlet

Lesson 12. Other administrative portlets
Objectives
Topic A: Portal clients
Existing client support
Adding support for new clients
Topic B: Web clippings
Defining web clippings
Using the Web Clipping Editor to import content
Topic C: URL mapping
Defining URL mappings
Creating a URL mapping
Topic D: Custom names
Defining custom names
Creating custom names

Lab 12: Performing miscellaneous administration tasks
Objectives
Task 1: Using web clippings to import content
Creating a new page
Task 2: Creating a URL mapping
Task 3: Creating custom names

Lesson 13. WebSphere Portal usage analysis
Objectives
Topic A: Monitoring portal usage
Data points available on the server side
Enabling server-side logging
Reading the log files
Topic B: Active Site Analytics for user behavior analysis
Samples and custom aggregator
Adding an aggregator to a page
Aggregators and themes

Lab 13: Enabling and reading the logs
Objectives
Task 1: Enabling site analysis logging
Task 2: Reviewing the log

Lesson 14. Theme architecture
Objectives
Topic A: Client-side aggregation versus server-side aggregation
Page aggregation concepts
Understanding aggregation options
Topic B: Portal customization and branding
Defining and creating a brand
Defining themes and skins
Implementing a theme
Adding themes
Applying a theme

Lesson 15. Installing WebSphere Portal
Objectives
Topic A: Options, methods, and sources for installing WebSphere Portal
The Base option
The Full option
Installation methods
Profiles
Topic B: Configuring WebSphere Portal
Developer mode
Empty portal

Lab 15: Installing WebSphere Portal Server
Objective

Lesson 16. Configuring WebSphere Portal
Objectives
Topic A: Working with the ConfigEngine and the Configuration Wizard
ConfigEngine overview
ConfigEngine Wizard overview
How the ConfigEngine works
Topic B: Configuring the database
Configuration tasks for the database
Properties for the database configuration
Topic C: Using profiles
Profile types
Considerations for multiple profiles
Creating profiles

Lab 16: Configuring the portal database
Objectives
Task 1: Configuring the database
Creating DB2 databases
Migrating databases to DB2
Task 2: Verifying the data transfer

Lesson 17. Security for WebSphere Portal
Objectives
Topic A: LDAP-based authentication
Overview of LDAP-based authentication
Topic B: Portal security
Authentication
VMM and LDAP integration
Stand-alone LDAPs, federated repositories, and multiple LDAPs
Security for immediate use
Custom LDAP integration
Property extension database (formerly the Look-aside database)
External security managers

Lab 17: Enabling portal security using an LDAP repository
Objectives
Task 1: Checking existing users and groups
Task 2: Editing security property settings
Modifying security properties
Restarting WebSphere_Portal
Changing the WebSphere Portal administrator and administration group
Restarting WebSphere_Portal
Task 3: Testing the new security settings

Lesson 18. Creating a cell
Objectives
Topic A: Network deployment overview
Concepts
Architecture
Topic B: Creating a cell
Installing network deployment
Creating and working with the deployment manager profile

Lab 18: Creating a portal cell
Objectives
Task 1: Stopping WebSphere Portal Server, if needed
Task 2: Installing the Deployment Manager
Task 3: Starting and configuring the Deployment Manager
Starting the Deployment Manager
Configuring the Deployment Manager
Increasing the HTTP connection timeout
Setting the requestTimeout for the Java management extensions connector
Changing the maximum Java heap size
Creating a WebSphere Portal administrator group
Changing the SOAP timeout

Lesson 19. Federating a portal node into a cell
Objectives
Topic A: Federating and clustering a WebSphere Portal node
Planning
Administrative tools
Federating the node
Topic B: Managing a WebSphere Portal cluster
Starting and stopping the node agent

Lab 19: Federating and clustering the primary node
Objectives
Task 1: Creating the WebSphere Portal profile template
Task 2: Preparing the deployment manager
Task 3: Federating and clustering the primary node
Federating the node
Creating a static cluster
Creating the cluster definition and adding WebSphere_Portal to the cluster
Verifying that the cluster was created
Lesson 20. Troubleshooting
Objectives
Topic A: Overview of troubleshooting
Logs
Logging and tracking
IBM Support Assistant-lite
Topic B: Tools for troubleshooting
Tracing

Lab 20: Troubleshooting a portal
Objectives
Task 1: Restarting all servers and checking runtime log files
Stopping the portal, node agent, and deployment manager on all nodes
Deleting the log files for the servers
Starting the deployment manager and node agent and examining the log files
Starting the portal nodes
Starting the portal server from the administrative console
Using the administrative console to examine the SystemOut and SystemErr
logs for each server
Task 2: Enabling tracing for portal components
Changing the detail level for tracing on the first cluster member
Restarting WebSphere Portal
Examining the startup trace information in the tracelog file
Logging in to the portal and examining the trace log
Task 3: Working with the IBM Support Assistant
Task 4: Using the Tivoli Performance Viewer
Starting the performance viewer
Monitoring the portal servlet
Examining the Tivoli Performance Viewer performance advisor
Exiting the Tivoli Performance Viewer and disabling monitoring on the servers
Cleaning up your desktop

Lesson 21. XML Access
Objectives
Topic A: The XML configuration interface for WebSphere Portal
Overview of the XML configuration interface
Working with the XML configuration interface tool
Topic B: Examples of when to use XML Access
Exporting configurations

Lab 21: Using XML Access
Objectives
Task 1: Generating a full export of the WebSphere Portal 70 configuration
Task 2: Verifying that the export process ran successfully

Lesson 22. Production topologies
Objectives
Topic A: Production topologies
Distributed or stand-alone
Vertical cluster
Horizontal cluster
Portal farms, cloud computing, and network deployment infrastructures
Topic B: Building a development- and a production-ready deployment
Planning
Considerations
Topic C: Reducing single points of failure
Portal infrastructure
Approaches for reducing single points of failure
Topic D: Enabling redundancy for configuration data
Defining configuration data
Topic E: Evaluating data requirements
Topic F: Database split options
Defining database split options
Topic G: Configuring databases for failover
Database failover support options
Defining scalability
Topic H: Capacity planning considerations
Topic I: Web Services for Remote Portlets
Defining WSRP
Benefits of WSRP

Lesson 23. Managing portlets in WebSphere Portal clusters
Objectives
Topic A: Deploying portlets in a cluster
Clustered portlet deployment task
Clustered portlet deployment process
Topic B: Installing or updating a portlet in a cluster
Topic C: Synchronizing nodes
Topic D: Using XML Access in a cluster

Lesson 24. Staging to production
Objectives
Topic A: Moving from a staging to a production environment
Staging versus production
Determining what is moved into production
Topic B: Reviewing the release life cycle
Overview of the release life cycle
Topic C: Staging system and production system
Defining the staging environment
Defining the production environment
Topic D: Implementing releases
Defining releases
Managing releases
Topic E: Using Release Builder
Defining Release Builder
Executing Release Builder
Exploring release scenarios
Topic F: Moving artifacts manually
Identifying artifacts not supported by Release Builder
Moving artifacts manually from staging to production

Lab 24: Deploying resources from staging to production
Objectives
Task 1: Exporting the release from production
Exporting the current configuration using XML Access
Verifying that the export process ran successfully
Task 2: Moving staging resources to production
Task 3: Running Release Builder to create a differential release
Task 4: Importing a differential release (production server)
Importing the differential release
Verifying that the XML Access command ran successfully
Activating the portlet

Lesson 25. Production procedures
Objectives
Topic A: Backup procedures for the production environment
Topic B: Applying updates in the production environment
Applying WebSphere Application Server updates
Applying WebSphere Portal updates