Chapter 2. WebSphere Commerce Portal architecture 61
WebSphere Commerce Portal functionality manages a SessionObject, which is
shared by all commerce portlets of the WebSphere Portal user. This
SessionObject provides services to maintain session relevant data to issue a
WebSphere Commerce HTTP request. The commerce portlet internally sends a
WebSphere Commerce HTTP requests using the HttpClient. The requests to the
WebSphere Commerce server are serialized in the needed order to prevent a
problem with the sequence of the request/response of each commerce portlet
being served out of order for what is needed for the commerce portal page.
Where to find more information
Additional information on access control can be found as follows:
WebSphere Commerce
– WebSphere Commerce V5.4 online documentation
– WebSphere Commerce V5.4 Handbook, SG24-6567
WebSphere Portal
– WebSphere Portal V4.1 Developer’s Handbook, SG24-6897
2.7 Presentation services and page rendering
With traditional Web applications, the client is the Web browser and interaction
with the server is performed using HTTP requests and responses. In the case of
a portal, the portal becomes the client, since it is performing the aggregation of
the content from the portlets and rendering of the page sent to the Web browser
client.
Traditional WebSphere Commerce Web sites and WebSphere Commerce Portal
sites serve Web browser clients HTML-based display pages using JavaServer
Page (JSP) technology. Web browser clients can run on Windows, UNIX, Linux,
or MAC operating systems. The most common Web browsers used are Microsoft
Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator/Communicator. Each JSP served to
the Web browser client contains HTML tags such as <header>, <html>, and
<body> used by the Web browser to render the page.
In the case of a WebSphere Portal application, the portal server assembles the
contents of the individual portlets and renders the page, which is sent to the Web
browser client. For this reason, the portlet JSPs do not have formatting tags
found in a standard JSP, such as <header>. The portlet JSPs can contain HTML
or markup languages for mobile devices such as WML.
62 WebSphere Commerce Portal V5.4 Solutions
Where to find more information
Additional information on presentation services and page rendering can be found
as follows:
WebSphere Portal
WebSphere Portal V4.1 Developer’s Handbook, SG24-6897
WebSphere Commerce Portal
– Commerce Enabled Portal Integration Guide, IBM Commerce
Enhancement Pack April 2003 Edition, in the appendix on converting
existing JSPs
– 7.3, “Customizing the ITSO B2B CEP store” on page 291
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