| This book focuses on the design of the WebSphere and Lotus Collaboration implementations used within IBM and in IBM's commercial offerings. As such, it is geared mostly toward the design of large, enterprise-wide deployment of WebSphere, Domino, and other Lotus Collaboration tools. The basic concepts for the design of WebSphere and Lotus Collaboration implementations, however, apply to all sizes of deployments, so the book should prove useful to your WebSphere and Lotus Collaboration implementations ”no matter what the size . Cutting-edge collaboration can streamline business processes and speed response times. Success usually depends on convergence and consolidation of your processes. If you can place everything from security to content repositories on a common platform, you can help break down the barriers between your employees , partners , and customers. Convergence and consolidation with the help of collaboration tools means fewer devices to manage and maintain, which translates into lower administrative costs and higher return on investment (ROI). Productivity is another payoff. Convergence lets employees move seamlessly from application to application in real-time, whether instant messaging, Web conferencing, or document management. With collaboration tools, you can find information on the fly and save, modify, or send as you go. The use of collaboration tools with your Web-based systems can be much more efficient than following email strings or sorting through voice messages. It should be noted that the IBM/Lotus Company is continually looking at the role of the WebSphere and Domino platforms. For example, Lotus has been looking at the use of WebSphere and DB2 for many of its future messaging and collaboration products. In 2003, Lotus introduced Workplace, a set of browser-based collaboration solutions that are built on WebSphere and DB2. It's a new server with a back-end data repository that runs on DB2 and uses WebSphere as the Web-serving engine for the browser-based user interface. The server authenticates users through an LDAP directory. WebSphere and DB2 provide stable foundations for the product and give developers more options for J2EE-based application integration. The first Lotus Workplace component introduced was Workplace messaging. The messaging market is diverging. There exists messaging that is tied closely to groupware and offers collaboration capabilities (as Domino does); but with Workplace messaging, IBM has developed a portal approach to messaging where messaging becomes a service or feature that's integrated into a portal. This approach is significant for IBM and its ongoing portal, wireless, and On Demand Business strategy. Domino, by way of its collaborative capabilities, also has that association between applications and email. Domino is still the best platform for users who require high-end email and collaboration functionality. But the purely WebSphere solution has advantages because of its J2EE standards and ability to easily integrate with other standards-based solutions such as portals. The next generation of most Lotus and IBM products will offer closer orientation to a portal. A full-fledged portal can take over much of what more traditional groupware used to do and often can do it faster, cheaper, and better. By the way, we've all been using portals for some time because, in essence, a portal is an internet Web site that allows people to search for information from a number of different internet sources, as well as the portal Web site itself. In effect, a portal acts as gateway to the World Wide Web. Products such as WebSphere Portal Server and Lotus Workplace have now made it easy to set up and modify portals. We should all value the application of technology to solve serious business problems. Computing is no longer seen as a collection of piece parts . Today, computing is viewed holistically ”as a technical architecture, an end-to-end system, and a computing model. On Demand Business has to do with how trends in technology and application of technology to the needs of business are coming together in a new era, and it's that era that is being called "On Demand Business." An On Demand Business enjoys enormous competitive advantages. These companies are able to -
Be extremely responsive to external threats, marketplace opportunities, and the needs of their customers, employees, and partners. -
Convert fixed costs into variable costs. -
Greatly reduce their inventories. To achieve these goals, a business must integrate its processes throughout the organization and with their suppliers and customers. Once a company's various processes are optimized and pulled together into an integrated system, they'll enjoy greater productivity and will be able to meet their own customers' escalating demand and the changing dynamics of their own industries and the global economy. Combining collaboration and Web server software is one important step toward integrated systems. The intent of this book is to help you with the different options in integrating Lotus Collaboration and WebSphere ”including the significant option of using the WebSphere Portal Server to help make that integration happen. |
