Portal application (IBM)

IBM i Access for Web provides an IBM portal application that runs in a portal environment, such as WebSphere® Portal.

The IBM portal application is a set of portlets, written to the IBM Portlet API, that provide functions for accessing IBM i resources.

Note: The IBM Portlet API is a specification, defined by IBM, for developing portal applications. A standard specification, Java™ Specification Requests (JSR) 168, now exists for developing portal applications. IBM i Access for Web also provides a portal application written to this standard specification. The standard implementation is the strategic IBM i Access for Web portal offering.

Each portlet is accessed as part of a page. The portlets can be combined on pages to allow access to multiple functions at the same time. Each portlet can appear on a page multiple times. The portlets can be combined on pages with portlets from other applications to integrate information from IBM i with data from other information sources.

The portal application can provide access to IBM i resources on multiple systems. Each portlet on a page can access IBM i resources on a different system. If a portlet appears on a page multiple times, each instance of the portlet can access a different system.

Web serving environment

The combination of an HTTP server and a portal server, such as WebSphere Portal, provides the Web serving environment for the portal application provided by IBM i Access for Web. The HTTP server receives client HTTP requests from a browser and routes them to the portal environment for processing.

For the most current list of supported portal environments, refer to the Web page for IBM i Access for Web. This page will be updated with information about any additional Portal environments supported.