Integrating with the web application bridge

The web application bridge uses reverse proxy technology to integrate web-based content providers, such as the Microsoft SharePoint 2007 server, with IBM® WebSphere® Portal. Administrators must first define the virtual web applications or content providers. A lightweight IFrame portlet displays the content from the backend applications. Users can then access the IFrame on a page without requiring direct network access to the backend application. A special engine maps Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) on the iFrame portlet to real URIs from the content providers.

About this task

Integrating the web application bridge with WebSphere Portal is a multistep process. The first part of the process is creating a new application from the Virtual web application manager portlet. Within the application, define the following information:
  • The context root for the web application
    Tip: The context root starts with / and ends just before the second /.
  • The fully qualified host name of the backend site
  • The URI scheme
  • Display name
  • Description
  • Access control
You can also define the following optional items:
  • The supported HTTP methods such as GET and POST
  • Authentication levels
  • User-agent configurations that are specific to the web application
  • Language support
  • Form-based authentication
The web application bridge also supports single sign-on for sites that require basic authentication.

After creating the application, you must add a Web Dock portlet onto a page. Finally you configure the portlet to define from which backend site the content must be shown.

The web application bridge consists of the following four components:
Web Application Manager portlet
This component is used to provision, update, export, and delete the application componef.
Web Dock portlet
This component shows the content that is fetched from backend sites on a portal page.
Engine component
This component contains the system logic necessary to handle and orchestrate the other components of the web application bridge.
Reverse proxy component
This component handles http based communication with the backend sites.
  • Web application bridge support
    The intention of the Web Applications Bridge is to support the complex and heterogeneous web applications that have been constructed using common best practices and function according to industry accepted standards.
  • Supporting Inter-Portlet Communication in the web application bridge
    The web application bridge supports sending events from the client side and server side. The WebDock portlet can send and receive events from other portlets on the same page. It uses a client side technique that is based on OpenAjax. With client side events, no page refresh is required. The WebDock portlet can also send events to other portlets. It uses a server-side technique that is based on the JSR 286 event support. With server-side events, a full page refresh is required.
  • Form based authentication
    Some sites require you to log in with a form before you are allowed to browse the site. You must set up the web application bridge to emulate these steps. This feature is called form-based authentication. The web application bridge supports one type of form-based authentication.
  • Provisioning a back-end site with the Manage web application portlet
    You can provision any back-end site with the Manage web application and the Web Dock portlets.
  • Writing filters for the web application bridge
    The Web Application Bridge provides an interceptor mechanism to manipulate the request that goes from the IBM WebSphere Portal to the content provider site. This interceptor mechanism can also manipulate the response that comes from the content provider site. This interceptor mechanism is based on the servlet filter API and can be configured with the Virtual Web Application Manager (VWAT) portlet.
  • Supporting SPNEGO in the web application bridge
    The web application bridge supports the Simple and Protected GSS-API Negotiation (SPNEGO) as the web authenticator for the application server. SPNEGO support relies on the scenario where IBM WebSphere Application Server is already configured for SPNEGO web authentication.
  • Troubleshooting the web application bridge
    The troubleshooting information is useful for planning and implementing your web application bridge (WAB) integration.
  • Parent topic: Integrating