Usefull links for migrating from WPS 5.x to V6.x

We are currently preparing the migration of our intranet portal from WPS version 5.1.0.4 to version 6.1.
This is a major operation, which requires a lot of work and competencies. To help for migration, here is a list of useful links I would like to share with you. I will try to update it with new links. If you know other ressources, don't hesitate
to add comments...

WCM

WCM Migration:
IBM Workplace Web Content Management V2.x to V6.x Migration Guide
IBM Workplace Web Content Management V2.x to V6.x Migration Guide


WCM Migration Tips (article from WCM Wiki):
WCM Migration Tips


WCM V6 Best Practices:
Best practices for using IBM Workplace Web Content Management V6
Best practices for using IBM Workplace Web Content Management V6


WCM V6 Tuning
IBM Web Content Management V6.0 Tuning Guide Document
IBM Web Content Management V6.0 Tuning Guide Document

WPS:

What's New in WPS V6:
What's new in WebSphere Portal Version 6?
What's new in WebSphere Portal Version 6?


WPS V5.x to V6.x migration:
IBM WebSphere Portal V6: Best Practices for Migrating from V5.1
IBM WebSphere Portal V6: Best Practices for Migrating from V5.1


WPS Best Practices:
WebSphere Portal Version 6 Enterprise Scale Deployment Best Practices
WebSphere Portal Version 6 Enterprise Scale Deployment Best Practices


WPS development:
Developing themes and skins in IBM® WebSphere® Portal 6.0.X
Developing themes and skins in IBM® WebSphere® Portal 6.0.X

Software as a service

Today I just would like to highlight a very interesting source of information: TV4IT

Basically, it's a "web TV" which provides interviews of technical expert on various subjects. But my favorite ressource are the "weekly report" of Cyril Dhénin. These report are called "revue du Net du dimanche matin".
Yes, it's in french...sorry for english reader.

Each sunday, Cyril publish a short video about subjects similar to : SaaS (Software as a service), Google services, Microsoft, Java, Cloud computing, Web 2.0, etc.

This video about Saas (Software as a Service) is particularly interesting:
revue-du-net du 2008-01-27


It's about the way company will use IT ressources and software in the future. One possibility is that company will not manage software by themself anymore, but instead will use external remote services provider and consume these services. This will help enterprise focusing on their own business and competencies...
I think this future could happen very soon. These kind of service provider already exists (Google, Amazon, S3, etc). With their big datacenter these actors now have the power to provide data through the web to many users. Moreover, with networks coming more and more fast, and technologies like virtualization, there are no more technical limitations to build such large scale services.


The SaaS trend is interesting for us, because in our company that's basically what we are trying to build. Of course the scale is smaller, but the technical approach is similar: our team is working at the Group level (DSI), trying to provide centralized services (like portal, document management, search services) for other entities of our company.
The goal is of course to provide mutualized and shared services, more reliable, and to reduce costs. By providing these services to business entities, we are trying to help them focusing on their job, and not to worry about hosting or softwares installation...So the Group DSI is now acting as a software service provider, for internal needs.

Of course this is a challenging approach and we are facing some issues (for instance with datacenter and hosting)...Deploying software on a large scale is more difficult than deploying a solution for a small entity...But this is only the beginning, and our services will become more and more reliable with the time.

In our case, these plateform of services are managed internally, and for internal use only. This is mainly for privacy reasons, but simply also because these external services providers do not really offer such services for the moment...I don't know if company will really use external services providers in the next years ? But it's probably only a question of time....