Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers [Paperback]

James J. Townsend (Author), Dmitri Riz (Author), Deon Schaffer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 29, 2004

Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers is the practical guide to designing, developing, and implementing Web portals using Microsoft servers and the .NET Framework. James J. Townsend provides portal development teams with a working developer's overview of the concepts, technologies, and products used in building successful corporate portals. Readers learn how to create a portal architecture based on Microsoft .NET and integrate multiple server technologies and components to create a powerful portal solution. After introducing basic concepts in portal development, Townsend describes the Microsoft portal strategy and the importance of Web services to .NET. Readers become familiar with the .NET portal framework and the roles of Microsoft's SQL Server, Commerce Server (MCS), SharePoint Portal Server, BizTalk Server, Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server, Content Management Server (MCMS), and related technologies. Key topic coverage includes security feature integration, personalization, content management, enterprise application integration (EAI), collaboration features, providing full search capability, and achieving scalability. A companion Web site features all the source code used in examples throughout the book. This book provides practical development advice in answer to questions commonly faced by portal developers, such as: * When does it make sense to develop or deploy a Web service? Page 87 * Is there a straightforward way to mitigate almost all potential security risks? Page 197 * How do you get the most out of personalization? Page 266 * How can you measure the return on investment for content management? Page 269 * Which is the best online conferencing solution for your organization? Page 403 * When and how should you scale up and/or out? Page 446 Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers shows you how to choose and integrate the right products and build the best portal for your organization.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers is the practical guide to designing, developing, and implementing Web portals using Microsoft servers and the .NET Framework. James J. Townsend provides portal development teams with a working developer's overview of the concepts, technologies, and products used in building successful corporate portals. Readers learn how to create a portal architecture based on Microsoft .NET and integrate multiple server technologies and components to create a powerful portal solution.

After introducing basic concepts in portal development, Townsend describes the Microsoft portal strategy and the importance of Web services to .NET. Readers become familiar with the .NET portal framework and the roles of Microsoft's SQL Server, Commerce Server (MCS), SharePoint Portal Server, BizTalk Server, Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server, Content Management Server (MCMS), and related technologies. Key topic coverage includes security feature integration, personalization, content management, enterprise application integration (EAI), collaboration features, providing full search capability, and achieving scalability. A companion Web site features all the source code used in examples throughout the book.

This book provides practical development advice in answer to questions commonly faced by portal developers, such as:

When does it make sense to develop or deploy a Web service? Page 87

Is there a straightforward way to mitigate almost all potential security risks? Page 197

How do you get the most out of personalization? Page 266

How can you measure the return on investment for content management? Page 269

Which is the best online conferencing solution for your organization? Page 403

When and how should you scale up and/or out? Page 446

Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers shows you how to choose and integrate the right products and build the best portal for your organization.

About the Author

Deon Schaffer has been developing with Visual Basic and other Microsoft technologies for more than seven years. Over the past few years, Deon's focus has been on designing and developing Windows DNA applications. He is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD) and has a degree in information systems engineering. Deon is a senior consultant at Information Strategies in Washington, DC.

0321159632AB11202003

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Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (March 29, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321159632
• ISBN-13: 978-0321159632
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,321,583 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good topic idea but ..., June 17, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers (Paperback)

This book explains the concept of portals and how Microsoft enterprise servers handle and implement the features that goes into a portal. The book is written by 3 authors and unfortunately the different writing styles and depth of the subject show.

For example in Chapter 8 Personalization, there is only one page on personalization with Content Management Server. Most of the content in it concentrates on how to do caching in a personalized setting without explaining how to do personalization with CMS in the first place.

In Chapter 5 Portal Framework, it details line by line codes on how to write a portal site in VB.Net. While the code is good, it is too technical compared with the rest of the book. I rather see code snippets on how to build some common components in a portal site instead of a portal application. It is a bit difficult to extract out the code you need as everything is tied together in the architecture. BTW, there is no CD in the book and no hyperlink is mentioned on where to download the source code.

The book has an entire chapter on Content Management Server. It also covers Commerce Server and SharePoint Portal Server quite well and gives a brief overview on BizTalk and InfoPath. I rather see more technical emphasis on how to integrate the different servers than having screenshots of numerous dialogs explaining what each of the fields does.

Finally the book retails at $50 which is far too expensive. It should be around $35 instead.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Broad in scope and audience, June 24, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers (Paperback)

While most technology books either pander to Luddite executives or deliver pages of code to professional developers, _Building Portals_ is that rare breed, a tech book with content for managers and architects and developers. Townsend has done a great job capturing the spirit of portals and answering the hardest two questions: "What is a portal" and "What does it do". I passed a dog-earned copy around to some tech-challenged coworkers and it was very well received.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally a book that ties all these products together, July 29, 2004

By 

Jill Bates - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers (Paperback)

As a long-time user of Microsoft products, I have found the array and depth of the various products overwhelming and needed a comprehensive yet easy to understand presentation of the key parts of these products and how they can be used within a portal implementation. While the code fragments were far too technical for me, the rest of the book was very approachable and well worth the time investment to read. I strongly recommend this for all CIOs or people responsible for technical architecture and direction.