Websphere Portal v6.1 News (Sept 2008)

To be honest I didn't have the time to read these ressources about v6.1 new features or migration path, but I'm sure some of them will be helpful for all of you which are "trying to determine whether to upgrade to WebSphere Portal V6.1 but want to better understand the benefits and migration considerations":


New WebSphere Portal Reviewer's Guide now available!

Are you wondering what Web 2.0 features, open standards and related technologies are supported by the latest WebSphere Portal release? If so, the new WebSphere Portal Version 6.1 Reviewers Guide is the document you've been waiting for! Created to provide an overview of new features and functions, and the business value such features and functions provide, the Reviewer's Guide includes more than fifty pages of information accompanied by numerous illustrations and screen captures. Whether you're looking for the latest information about WebSphere Portal, Version 6.1, IBM accelerators, WebSphere Portal-based industry solutions, related technologies and services, or IBM Business Partner solutions, the new Reviewer’s Guide can help.

Download the new Reviewer's Guide (PDF, 8 MB)

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Webcast: IBM WebSphere Portal V6.1 Web 2.0 capabilities (for developers)

In this recorded presentation, find out what is "under the hood" in the new WebSphere Portal V6.1 release and learn how cool new Web 2.0 features complement enterprise portal applications.

Listen to this webcast

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IBM WebSphere Portal Developers Talk to You, an interactive discussion (for developers)

During an open-mike session, IBM WebSphere Portal product experts and market thought leaders provide insight into the recently released IBM WebSphere Portal V6.1 release and its Web 2.0 capabilities.

Listen to this webcast

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ISSL ExpertBriefing: Upgrading to WebSphere Portal V6.1

Are you trying to determine whether to upgrade to WebSphere Portal V6.1 but want to better understand the benefits and migration considerations? Listen to the ISSL ExpertBriefing podcast on WebSphere Portal V6.1 upgrades to hear solution architects from IBM Software Services for Lotus (ISSL) discuss the benefits of using version 6.1 and what to take into consideration when planning a portal deployment or migration project.

Listen to the ISSL ExpertBriefing on WebSphere Portal 6.1 upgrades

Replicating a portal between Europe and Asia

We currently are working on new project to set-up a replica of our European portal instance in Asia. This is not a common portal deployment project, so I would like to share this challenge with you, and see if some of you could have implemented a similar architecture...

In our case, this duplication of instances is required mainly because of bandwith limitations: our intranet users in Asia experience very bed response time when connecting to the "remote" European portal (network latency is the main issue).
Using local proxy was not an option because in our context it is hard to ensure that every Asian user can use a proxy. Moreover, we have several dynamic webapplication integrated to the portal (and these application are not easily cacheable).

So we have decided to install a replica (mirror) in Asia with its own local database and LDAP.

This architecture will require to replicate 3 kinds of data:
- LDAP data (using the standard LDAP replication mechanism),
- WCM Content (using the WCM standard syndication),
- Websphere portal pages: in this case we will do a custom development (based on xmlaccess) to synchronize page from both portal.

We plan to implement a master/master data flow to give the opportunity for our authors to create content locally (to ensure better performances).

Installation of the Asia instance is currently under way, so I will keep posting on the subject in the next weeks.

For the moment, the bigger issue we are experiencing is due to the size of our WCM repository. As it is bigger than 10 GB, we have to initialize the remote WCM database using a dump file (and then enable the syndication). However, for the moment, our local tests are not working; after importing the dump on the subscriber server, enabling syndication cause the subsciber server to crash...we are currently working with the support to try to fix this problem.