  August 2005
This series can help you understand some of the things you need to think about when you define and implement your portal's functionality, user interface, security, and infrastructure. Much of this knowledge can only come through experience in building multiple portals. The team of authors -- portal architects and specialists -- writing this series has that experience. After successfully deploying a wide variety of portal projects over the past four years, the team conveys its collective experience and provide tips, examples, and insight into some of the common issues that you might face. The goal of this series is to cover the entire spectrum of a portal project from initial requirements to ongoing operations and maintenance. You do not need to have any previous knowledge of portals or IBM® WebSphere® Portal to understand the content of this series; however a working knowledge of Web-based applications, and experience with IT projects will give you enough of a footing to understand the process. To understand the complete process, and to be able to anticipate the tasks and events which might occur throughout the project, read the entire series. The following provides some guidance to specific team members, who might gain more from some parts of the series than others. Executives, business sponsors, and business analysts should read the first three articles to effectively gather requirements, and to understand the overall process of how a portal project might unfold. Project managers should read the first three parts, and will be most interested in the third article involving project planning. Architects should focus on parts 2-4, which cover the portal workshop, project planning and task estimation, and portal design. IT specialist and development leads should read the entire series, but will get the most out of part 3, involving project planning, and part 5, which discusses developing and building the portal. Infrastructure and support specialists should focus on the last article involving the administration and maintenance of a portal. Link to project implementation.
developerWorks WebSphere Portal zone: Find more resources to help you develop portals and portlets.
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