Understanding Portlet Deployment

Overview of Portlet Deployment

The SAS Information Delivery Portal provides several functions with regard to portlets:

hot deployment of portlets. After you copy the PAR file into the appropriate portlet deployment directory, the portal automatically deploys the portlets via a hot deployment mechanism that runs when the portal's Web application server starts.
state management of portlets. The portal manages portlet state and keeps track of the portlet context.
routing of user requests. The portal routes user requests to the appropriate portlet. These portlets might be local portlets or remote portlets. For details about how local and remote portlets run in the portal, see How Local and Remote Portlets Execute.

For instructions about adding custom-developed portlets to the portal, see Adding Custom-Developed Portlets .

Deploying Portlets

To deploy portlets in the SAS Information Delivery Portal, copy the PAR file to the portlet deployment directory. For instructions, see Step 2: Deploy the Portlet in the SAS Information Delivery Portal. When the Web application server starts, the portal deploys the portlets through the portal's hot deployment mechanism. The portal handles portlets as follows:

deploying additional portlets: If you add a portlet and its resources to the Web application server while the portal is running, the portal automatically deploys the new portlet into the portal.

Note: The portal makes one attempt to deploy the PAR file. If the hot deployment is not successful, the portal does not attempt to deploy the PAR file again.
updating or removing portlets: If you update or remove a portlet and its resources in the Web application server, the portal does not automatically update or remove the portlet from the portal. To update or remove a portlet, you must rebuild the sas.portal9.2.ear file, and stop and restart the Web application server. The portal checks the portlet deployment directory and updates or removes the appropriate portlets from the portal.

How Local and Remote Portlets Execute

From an administration and performance perspective, it is important to understand how portlets are executed. You can develop and deploy two types of portlets: local portlets and remote portlets. For details, see Developing Portlets for the SAS Information Delivery Portal.

A local portlet is deployed inside the SAS Information Delivery Portal and executes inside the portal's Web application server. Because a local portlet executes in the portal's Web application server, it consumes the computing resources (for example, CPU, memory, and disk storage) of the server machine on which the portal's Web application server runs. When local portlets are deployed, they might also include resources such as Web pages, style sheets, images, resource bundles, and Java classes that are deployed inside the portal.

A remote portlet might not execute within the same Web application server and Web application as the portal. Remote portlets enable data from external applications to be incorporated into a Web application. Therefore, a remote portlet might consume computing resources (for example, CPU, memory, and disk storage) on a different machine than the server machine on which the portal's Web application server runs.

For details about the steps to develop a remote portlet, and a detailed sample, see “Creating a Remote Portlet” and “Sample: Remote Portlet (HelloUserRemotePortlet)” in Developing Portlets for the SAS Information Delivery Portal.

From a user's perspective, the local portlet and remote portlet look the same. When a user interacts with a remote portlet, the remote portlet looks like a local portlet.