Fundamental Portal Elements

There is a baseline of products and technology that make up the foundation of the Microsoft platform. All of these are discussed in subsequent chapters as they relate to portal services. Figure 3.3 shows the entire Microsoft product "stack."

Figure 3.3. The Microsoft Product Stack

At the bottom is the server operating system. Windows 2000, Windows 2003, and subsequent versions provide a wide range of portal functionality, including security services, the HTTP server (Internet Information Server), Active Directory for managing user accounts and other assets, and support for all the server products in the portal.

Chapter 4 defines .NET and explains how it is needed for a portal. Naturally .NET is at the foundation of a .NET portal as well. For now, .NET requires a Microsoft operating system, but this may change in the future. For instance, there are efforts under way to provide .NET support for the Linux operating system. The .NET Framework is built into Windows 2003 and is a free add-on for Windows 2000. The framework is necessary to support .NET applications.

Content Management Server (CMS) is a key element of a .NET portal, to the extent that content management is a core portal function. CMS, SPS, Commerce Server, and BizTalk are tightly integrated with the .NET Framework, web services, and Visual Studio .NET.

SQL Server is a required element of the .NET portal. It is the repository for structured data used by all the portal applications, as well as the store for CMS and SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services. SQL Server 2000 has native support for XML, and future versions of SQL Server will have enhanced support for programming in .NET with Visual Studio .NET in stored procedures.

For an enterprise or corporate portal, you need the capabilities offered in SharePoint Portal Server for document management, collaboration, searching, and portal presentation. With its tight integration with Office, it is a natural for boosting knowledge worker productivity. SPS indexes Exchange public folders, documents in Windows, Novell and Unix files, and internal and external web sites.