Disclaimer

This material was developed in conjunction with the hardware and software products specified, and is limited in application to those specific hardware and software products and levels. Read full disclaimer

The employee workplace business scenario in this article was developed and tested at IBM by the SAL team. We provide information about detailed, end-to-end business scenario validation and the various products used to design, develop, and deploy applications that make up business solutions. During testing, multiple products are used together in the context of a business scenario and then validated. Acting as the first customer for the employee workplace solution covered in this article, the Software Group Scenario Architecture and Scenario Analysis Lab (SAL) team built the network and applications, integrated hardware, software, and applications, and tested the end-to-end solution. The solution passed through a true cycle of design and deployment. (Note that although other viable solutions to the business requirements are possible, testing focused on only one solution mapped to a set of business requirements.)

A benefit of solution testing is the validation of the integration of multiple products, so we include in this article specific information about the interaction among products for the employee workplace scenario. You will find:

• An overview of the business scenario with links to other IBM developerWorks articles for more details
• A network diagram
• A product matrix showing the products used and their interactions within the solution

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Understanding the product matrices

Knowing how to read the product matrices for each scenario is key to this article. Figure 1 shows an example matrix. Dots in the matrix, which represent product integration points, can designate:

• The operating system on which a product is installed (For example, Figure 1 shows IBM WebSphere® Studio Application Developer V5.1 is installed on a Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server, indicated by the dot at the intersection of the Windows 2000 Server and WebSphere Studio Application Developer V5.1.)
• Two products that interact with each other using an API or protocol (For example, WebSphere Portal V5.0.2 running on WebSphere Application Server - Enterprise V5.0.2 constitutes an integration point.)
• A software artifact built within a tool and deployed in a runtime environment (For example, a portlet application developed using WebSphere Studio Application Developer V5.1 and deployed to WebSphere Portal V5.0.2 results in an integration point between the two products.)

The blacked-out cells shown in the matrices simply indicate where the same products intersect.

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Introducing the employee workplace scenario

Employee workplace stage 3 builds on stages 1 and 2, and examines a workplace capability to effectively manage an increasing volume of document and Web content in a business. Stage 3 extends the solution space to resolve the business challenge of collaboration on content, with particular focus given to compliance, retention, and access control. Also, stage 3 takes a look at collaboration using applications, with particular focus on extending IBM Workplace Client Technology™ with existing enterprise applications.

In the third phase, four use cases are explored:

• Collaborating on work products
• Application integration
• Analyst research reporting
• Managing product information

The collaborating on work products, application integration, and analyst research reporting use cases are repeated in this stage from previous stages, but adopt a slightly different approach.

The collaborating on work products use case, similar to the community work business use case in the previous two stages, focuses on using collaborative capabilities to improve employee productivity. The use case looks at using workplace collaborative services such as Web conferencing, e-mail, calendar, discussion forum, document, and instant messaging features. In addition, a customized chat-logging capability is developed using the IBM Workplace™ instant messaging application program interface (API). The chat-logging feature is created using a chat-logging servlet, a session bean, an entity bean, and a portlet with which to view the logs.

The application integration use case is similar to that of the stage 1 and 2 vacation/travel request business use case. It is a customized vacation/travel request application that is provisioned to the IBM Workplace rich client for employees' use instead of a Web-based workplace. Employees can submit requests to a supervisor and view the status of the submitted requests on their personal workplace. A supervisor can view, approve, or reject requests submitted by an employee. The application interacts with an existing IBM WebSphere-based human resources (HR) application that maintains requests. The HR application was developed in stage 1.

The analyst research reporting use case continues to explore the out-of-box capabilities to create, manage, and find documents in the document management node. This use case extends the previous two stages and illustrates the effects of regulatory compliance. To facilitate this, we integrated a retention node into the document management node, providing users with the ability to create records for a document.

The managing product use case focuses on the reuse of information across the document feature and the Web content feature in the portal node. Features such as document workflow, access-control to work area, and Web content management are explored from the perspective of a business user, whose role is nontechnical and who should be able to easily use these features. The use case also illustrates the use of personalization to display content based on a user's profile.

The architecture of the employee workplace solution is divided into several components. The components, with the corresponding products used, are listed in Table 1.

Not shown in network diagram

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003
• Microsoft Windows XP
• SUSE Linux® Enterprise Server 8
• IBM AIX® 5.2
• IBM Rational® ClearCase® 2003.06
• IBM Workplace Collaboration Services API Toolkit 2.5
• IBM Workplace Collaboration Services Rich Client 2.5
• IBM Rational Application Developer 6.0

In the network diagram shown in Figure 2, you can see how the solution was built using the components.

The product matrix in Figure 3 shows the product integration points for the employee workplace scenario.

See a larger version of this matrix.

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Summary

Deciding which products to use when developing solutions can be a daunting task. Integrating and configuring the products to meet the business needs is another challenge. In this article, you learned some helpful approaches to designing cross-product IT infrastructures for employee workplace business requirements using the example solution that was built and tested in an IBM lab.

Disclaimer

This material was developed in conjunction with the hardware and software products specified, and is limited in application to those specific hardware and software products and levels. Your environment might contain hardware and software components not present during IBM testing that significantly alter the performance or operability of any test scenario. Any performance data contained in this document was determined in a controlled environment, and therefore, the results that may be obtained in other operating environments might vary significantly. Users of the material should verify the applicable data for their specific environment. Further, the information contained in this material has not been submitted to comprehensive testing and is distributed AS IS. No warranties or guarantees are given, other than those accompanying the sale or license of the IBM products. The use of this information or the implementation of any of these techniques is your responsibility and depends on your ability to evaluate and integrate them into your operational environment. While each item may have been reviewed by IBM for accuracy in a specific situation, there is no guarantee that the same or similar results will be obtained elsewhere. Customers attempting to adapt these techniques to their own environments do so at their own risk. The information related to non-IBM ('vendor') products in this material, if any, has been supplied by the vendors and is included for your convenience only. IBM assumes no responsibility for its accuracy or completeness. IBM may have patents or pending patent applications covering subject matter In this document. The furnishing of this material does not give you any license to these patents. You can send license inquiries, in writing, to the IBM Director of Licensing, IBM Corporation, 500 Columbus Avenue, Thornwood, NY 10594 USA. References in this publication to IBM products, programs or services do not imply that IBM intends to make these available in all countries in which IBM operates.

Resources

Learn

• For more information about the employee workplace business scenario, see the "Managing content in an employee workplace" series.
  
  
• Read the developerWorks article, "Customizing users in IBM Workplace."
  
  
• View a Flash demo of the employee workplace scenario.
  
  
• Find more information about the following products used in this business scenario:
  • WebSphere Portal
  • DB2 Content Manager
  • DB2 Records Manager
  • DB2 Information Integrator for Content
  • Workplace Web Content Management
  • Rational Application Developer
  
  

Get products and technologies

• Download a trial version of IBM DB2 Content Manager.
  
  
• Download a trial version of Rational Application Developer.
  
  
• Download a trial version of the IBM WebSphere Portal Toolkit.
  
  
• Check out more trial downloads on developerWorks.
  
  

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Table of contents

• Understanding the product matrices
• Introducing the employee workplace scenario
• Summary
• Disclaimer
• Resources
• About the author
• Comments

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