IBM® WebSphere® Portal Express® offers many types of groups and locations
to store the groups. Choosing the type of group and the location the groups are stored is an
important step in planning for using groups with WebSphere Portal Express.
The following list provides a summary of available options for using groups in
WebSphere Portal Express.
- File Repository
- Type of group: Static only
- Advantage: Configured with your initial installation
- Disadvantage: Not supported in production systems
- LDAP
- Type of group: Static, Nested (optional), Dynamic (optional)
- Advantage: LDAP is an established industry protocol, which can integrate with multiple
applications. In most use cases, WebSphere Portal Express connects to and
uses existing groups in an LDAP server.
- Disadvantage: LDAPs are only required to support static groups. Individual LDAP vendors might
optionally choose to support both nested and dynamic groups or to support either nested group or
dynamic group. Check with your LDAP administrator to determine which type of groups your LDAP
supports. If you have more requirements for using groups, consider to use an LDAP location and
another location for the groups that are listed next.
- Virtual Member Manager Federated database
- Type of group: Static only
- Advantage: Useful in situations where LDAP is read-only and needs more groups specific to
Portal. Allows for cross-repository groups, that is, users from LDAP#1 and users from LDAP#2 may
exist in the same database group.
- Disadvantage: Groups are not accessible outside of the WebSphere Portal Express server.
- Rule Based User Groups
- Type of group: Dynamic only
- Advantage: Provides dynamic group functions to WebSphere Portal Express
in cases where an LDAP server does not support dynamic groups.
- Disadvantage: Only supported by WebSphere Portal Express. Other WebSphere
Application Server based products cannot use these groups. Groups are accessible outside of the WebSphere Portal Express server.