Collaborative Real-Time Information Services via Portals

Abstract

The increased use of online services in the commercial world has produced considerable impact on traditional technologies. Traditional information technologies were developed in an era where use of Internet technologies was not widespread. They have a long history and are often based on mature and stable technologies, or practices such as user interface design, artificial intelligence techniques, and so forth. In the era of e-business, business operations are often conducted in conjunction with business alliances and partners through networked activities. Internet (or Web-based) technologies are fulfilling an enabling role to meet the communication and collaboration requirements of e-business. In this article, we share our experiences in how traditional information technologies are coupled with Web-based technologies to gain much-needed leverage in offering e-business solutions. Portals, as the major communication media for Web users, offer opportunities for collaboration using multiple technologies. They also serve as mechanisms for integrating a variety of online services supported by traditional applications. In this article we will discuss the role of portals in application integration for online collaborative service delivery. Particular emphasis will be given to the marrying of the modern roles of portals in e-business with those roles where portals fulfill the traditional roles of front-end technologies. The article demonstrates its vision through a portal-based application integration solution framework associated with a typical application scenario. We demonstrate the effectiveness of using portals in application integration by employing an experimental framework implemented in the PHOENIX research project at Victoria University (http://www.staff. vu.edu.au/PHOENIX/phoenix/index1.htm).