Computer
Science Department
Courant
Institute of Mathematical Sciences
Course Title: Application Servers Course Number: g22.3033-011
Instructor: Jean-Claude Franchitti Session: 15
1. Background on Web Services Computing Environments and Portlets
A “Web Service” is an
interface that describes a collection of operations that are network accessible
through standardized XML messaging.
Portals are commonly used
to provide people with access to information and applications in a condensed
form.
Portlets are single
purpose UI components that can be aggregated to build complicated portals. When
portlets are used, a portal becomes a container of customizable portlets.
Web Services and Portlets
can be integrated in two ways: (a) portlets may use Web Services as a backend,
and (b) portlets may be described, wrapped and published as Web Services.
2. Problem Definition and Suggested Steps
In this final assignment,
you are asked to specify a simple GUI-based business application that can be
implemented using a combination of Presentation and Data Web Services involving
both (a) and (b) as per section 1 above. You should restrict yourself to what you feel is
feasible based on time and the level of support provided by the component
infrastructures available. You then need
to implement a prototype of your application using mainstream (open source)
portlet development tools. You may reuse application services developed as part
of your ongoing course project. If you decide to do so, you may wish to extend
the application service(s) you developed so far to motivate the need for
migration to a Web Services for Remote Portlets platform as a way to handle
flexible access to your application components in a GUI-intensive service-trading
environment. Your
application should be tuned for efficiency as allowed by the component
infrastructure software.
3. Deliverables
1. Report documenting your business
application and explaining its motivation. Please include as many screen-shots
as possible. Your report should include comments regarding your assessment of
potential performance limitations inherent to WSRP-based architectures.
2. Software archive of your
component-base solution.
3. Readme file documenting
required software installation steps for (2), and a simple test scenario.
4. Document the benefits and
deficiencies of the Web Service/Portlet approach in general and specific to
your application.
6. Grading
All finals will be graded on a maximum scale of 10 points. Your grade will be based equally on:
a. The applicability of the
business application selected.
b. The overall quality of your
documentation.
c. The understanding and
appropriate use of related application server related technologies.
d. Your ability to submit
working and well-commented code.
e. Extra credit may be granted
for solutions that are particularly creative.