Subject: Some Advise: should i convert this app to websphere?
Werner,
my first reaction to your posting was: NO, don’t do it on Websphere! Argghhhh…
However, on second thought, the answer is the answer you’ll always get from a consultant: “it depends”.
“Converting” an app from Notes to Websphere basically means creating a new J2EE application, which is completely re-programming the whole application including security (this could be “oops” number 1 due to totally different security models).
And we are not discussing any issues towards document conversion, user training and so on yet.
If your issue is web-enabling the application ONLY (and you’re not dicussing any performance issues for example or have any other issues why you need to do this as a J2EE app), I’m not sure whether the terrifying amount of work assiciated with moving the app to J2EE will pay off. Most likely, staying with Domino will save you lots and lots of time (and therefore money, if you hire an external consultant/programmer to work with you on this). With your existing Domino knowhow, you’ll afterwards be able to service this app by yourself again.
If you convert to J2EE, you definitely need to have the J2EE knowledge and experience to completely re-program the app and migrate existing documents AND workflows. Doesn’t sound to be an easy task.
However, one of the main issues in your application will be which security model you’re using. If you’re working heavily with reader and author names fields and hide-when formulas not based on roles, or with encrypted document data, then converting the app to J2EE will be particularily painful and may not give you the security standards you’re used to from Domino.
Even worse are Rich Text fields, where you’ll run into lots of issues and lose lots of functionality when converting them to a J2EE app.
Let’s have an additional look at Websphere and Websphere Portal.
Websphere is a pure J2EE application server, doing basically nothing more than efficiently serving J2EE apps to web clients.
Websphere Portal is different: working with portlets, it basically opens a window to different data sources and manages and displays data from these sources to the user. Application logic may be added by programming the portlets (those are the “windows”, which are able to deal with the data received from the app).
Websphere Portal in fact is basically a J2EE application running on a Websphere Application Server - pls don’t mix those two up.
Websphere Portal is an interesting option if you want to present information from very different sources and want to customize the information displayed for different users and user groups on the web (e.g., customer group A sees something different than customer group B).
****** MY SUGGESTIONS *********
So, without having a closer look at your specific application, my preferences would be:
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check whether you can web-enable the Domino application and stay on a Domino server, probably then use a standard portlet to “pull” the app into a portal solution.
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check whether an existing portlet in Portal Server may be able to render the data properly, and may help in decreasing the programming workload
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check whether you can only create a new custom portlet to incorporate the Domino application into the Portal server - so the Domino app doesn’t change and we only “teach” Portal Server how to work with this application.
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Only my last and absolutely very last idea would be to completely re-program the existing application as a J2EE app.
The combination of the existing and probably a little bit “optimized” Domino app with Portal server is very interesting because then Portal may take care of all the “browser-specific” stuff and may save you lots of time.
That’s the sequence of things I’d consider …
If you have any questions, just drop me an email.
Have fun,
Stephan Holowaty
Principal Certified Lotus Instructor (SA&AD)
IBM Certified Instructor Websphere App Server (SA)
IBM Certified Instructor Websphere Portal Server (SA)
mailto:stephan.holowaty@holowaty.de