Entando Technical Series - Part 2

As promised I'm back to talk about Entando, today I'll present the second article in the Entando technical series.
I'll  talk about the Entando Core Services.

Before starting I suggest you to take a look at the package com.agiletec.aps.system.services in the Core Engine Entando, you can download it from https://github.com/entando/entando-core-engine

The Entando Core Services layer contains the business logic for the portal platform, the plugin included out of the box, the external data Services, The External Application Services, the UI Control and the REST API public interface.

The following lists present the basic services that are provided by default by Entando

• authorization this is the service that manages and verifies the permissions to access the portal displaying all the necessary methods
• baseconfig this is the service that manage the configuration. The configuration consists of items , identified by a name, and parameters (Parameters can be Simple strings or Complex XML texts)
• cache this is the service that manage the System cache it’s based on the EhCache library.
• category this is the service that manage the Category tree
• controller this is the service that controls the execution of a request from the client. The execution is carried out in sequence by invoking any other services specified in configuration
• group this is the service that manage the user’s group 
• i18n this is the service that provides strings/labels based on the used language(local). The strings/labels are specified by an identification key and the reference language.
• keygenerator as Entando doesn't use the Db sequences generator, for be independent from different players (mySql, Oracle, Postgresql,...) we had create our own sequence service
• lang this is the service that manage the different language used in the portal.
• page this is the service that manage the pages. Pages are held in a tree-like structure, to allow a hierarchical access.
• pagemodel this the service that manage the pagemodel. An Entando portal can have multiple templates, these “templates” are called Page Models (more info http://blog.entando.com/eblog/pages/en/homepage/view_post/?contentId=BLG25)
• role this is the service that manage the different users role present in the portal (for ie administrator, editor, guest, …)
• showlettype this the service that manage the different showlet(*) type used in the portal
• url this is the service that manage URL and creates a full URL to a portal page based on essential information
• user this is the service that manage the users registered in the portal

That's it for now. I expect you all to my next post

(*) Showlets are a key element in the creation of portals with Entando. In short Showlets are dynamic blocks of the portal, all those elements that are expected to want to move, adapt or change in the handling of the pages.(I will talk more in detail about showlet in a later post )

Entando for government

Government agencies need to adopt innovative models and tools to improve quality service to citizens at a reduced cost. This is an overview about how Entando's platform effciently solves issues ...

Entando for government from Entando

Open Data with Entando

Need to know how to manage Open Data with Entando?
Have a look at this slideshare presentation.

Entando and Open Data from Entando

I wish you a Merry Christmas and an Happy New Year

Rinaldo

SOA and Enterprise Inter-Operability with a Portal

Last Post from Sam’s World

Enterprise based portals employ a desirable set of functional characteristics that provide value any number of ways. While ROI and other business calculators are engaged to offer a compelling business argument to the introduction of a company based knowledge repository, my focus will instead lie with efficiencies derived from penetrating the middleware platform of an enterprise. Several benefits provided through the use of web-based portal services & SOA are what I will explore in this post. There is a dominant, myopic perspective in which enterprise portals are viewed as an information architecture and not for what they are – an application. The architecture establishes the foundation for a common view of the data, applications, and a common management interface for content. However, the real benefit of an enterprise portal comes from the convergence, not from the web based display mechanism. This fusion differentiates enterprise portals from a collection of web sites by offering

1. universal access to information,
2. role-based personalization,
3. cross-application workflow,
4. common content management, and
5. centralized user management.

Read the full Post SOA and Enterprise Inter-Operability with a Portal.

Entando Meets Open Data

Last post from Entando Universe :

“Open Data” has become the trend of the moment. Social networks, blogs, magazines on the web speak about about Open Data.
But first of all we need to define what is open data:
“Open Data is data that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone - subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike.” as defined by the Open Definition.
The full Open Definition gives precise details as to what this means:

• Availability and Access: the data must be available as a whole and at no more than a reasonable reproduction cost, preferably by downloading over the internet.

• Reuse and Redistribution: the data must be provided under terms that permit reuse and redistribution including the intermixing with other datasets.

• Universal Participation: everyone must be able to use, reuse and redistribute - there should be no discrimination against fields of endeavour or against persons or groups.

Governments have a broad range of different types of data and most of the government data is public by law, and therefore could be made open and made available for others to use. For this reason Open Data is often associated with Open Government.

Read more