How do we take decisions on technology choice ? Not only technology applies to other decisions we take.Do we really list down the tradeoffs before going with decision X with decision Y ?
Recently I had discussion with two my my customers on chosing a portal server. During both the disucssions I felt, the discussion of what portal server should i uses was premature.
For of Portal based applications, before even thinking about which portal server to use, first question I think should be
1. What do I really need, is it a ‘Portal’ or a just ‘Mashup’ which could be done with even normal web application with HTML5 CSS3.
List down the tradeoffs , “ What I gain if I develop as portal and what I lose if not “.
2. Came down to portal ? Now what kind of portal I’m trying to build
a. Is it a Content Management Portal ? Where you allow users to add, edit, publish, version contents. Workflows could also be involved here
b. Is it Content ‘Centric’ Portal? Where you pull information from different sources
c. Is it a Application Centric Portal? Where you users to access different application with a Single-Sign on
d. Is it a Information Portal ? Mashups with RSS feeds, stock charts, weather etc
e. Is it targeted for specific audience, like say travel information ? or it brings information aimed at all type of users like rediff, yahoo etc
There is difference in approach to be taken for each type of portals.
3. After deciding on the kind of portal I need to build, think how much ‘social’ and ‘collaboration’ I need for my portal users like Wiki, Blog, instant messaging etc. Do I need them, some of them or none ?
If include ‘social’ feature in my portal what I’m gaining , If I don’t what I’m losing?
Now I’m are more clear on my expectations from a Portal Server. So what all I need , Content Management , Security, Integration , Collaboration etc. ?
With the expectations clear , ask one more questions ,
Do I need open source or enterprise ? what I’m gaining for Open Source choice and what I’m losing?
Ok, I decided go with open source market, which one to chose from. But since I decided earlier what I should need from a Portal Server, my decision is much easier.
If confused, I’ll put the choices before me and I need to ask again, If I chose this “What I lose and what I gain”.
I didn’t started expecting write on portal, recently I read some article on decision making. So I was trying think through it. But I ended up in writing a technical post ?
So to summarize, are we making ‘decisions’ or ‘informed’ decisions ?
Any thoughts?
