Portal Server

The Portal Server consists of the runtime for executing the portal solution. It runs services created on the portal framework.

Environment for creating and managing solutions with a hierarchical structure of channels and pages and with a full apparatus for access control, caching, content aggregation, searching, single-sign on, application integration, among other functionalities.

Presentation Layer

All requests made to the portal pass through the presentation layer (Presentation Layer), which in turn are passed to the Service Container, whose responsibility is to call the service interfaces, forwarding the request and response objects, so that the page can be rendered.

Service Interface Container

The pages communicate with the service interfaces through a Service Interface Container.

The Service Interface Container receives requests from the pages to execute them on the service interfaces. The results of these requests are returned to the page.

The Service Interface Container is not responsible for aggregating the content generated by the service interfaces, but rather the presentation layer (set of pages).

Request Cycle to the Portal

Below is a typical sequence of events when a user accesses a page of the portal.

1. The client makes an HTTP call to the portal;
2. The Portal receives this call;
3. The Portal determines if there is an action directed at a service interface. If there is, it passes this request to the Service Interface Container which, in turn, passes it to the service interface to process the requests and returns the processing results to a page;
4. Once the page to be rendered is determined, the presentation layer reads the layout information of the page that determines which service interfaces need to be rendered.
5. Subsequently, the presentation layer calls the Service Interface Container to render each interface.
6. The contents are aggregated based on the layout of the page and the resulting HTML is returned to the client who made the original call.