Corporate Portals at a Glance

You won't surprise anyone with the presence of a corporate portal in your company. More and more large and medium-sized business representatives somehow came across the choice and implementation of the portal. Nevertheless, many enterprises are still on the verge of making a decision to launch a project for the implementation of a corporate portal. I hope my brief review will help you take the first step in this direction.

So, all portal solutions presented on the market today can be divided into three groups:

• platforms for creating corporate portals;
• boxed products (ready-made solutions) based on platforms;
• solutions offered as SaaS service (cloud solutions).

Consider them sequentially.

Platform for creating corporate portals

Platforms for creating portal solutions are in turn divided into commercial ones, such as

Oracle WebCenter Suite, MS SharePoint, IBM WebSphera, 1C-Bitrix

and open, such as

Joomla !, Jboss, Plone, Drupal, Jive, etc.

Platforms are used to develop corporate portals for a specific technical task (TZ), and theoretically better than other groups meet the needs of customers. If a competent TOR is compiled, if it describes all the needs of the company, then they will be implemented in such a decision.

Here we recall the story of the intrepid Spartans: When Philip of Macedon (Alexander's father) approached the walls of Sparta, he sent a message to the Spartans, which said: “I conquered all of Greece, I have the best army in the world. Give up, because if I seize Sparta by force, if I break its gates, if I break its walls with rams, I will mercilessly destroy the entire population. ” To which the Spartans replied: "If."

Indeed, it is very difficult to foresee all possible ways to use it before starting the test operation of the system. This may lead to a breakdown of the project deadline and / or withdrawal from the approved budget.

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Ready solutions based on platforms

Box products (ready-made solutions) are divided into solutions built on the basis of commercial platforms: IBM WebSphere Portal, Oracle Portal 11g, SAP NetWeaver Portal, DeskWork, Ittilan Portal, WSS Portal, 1-Bitriks: Corporate Portal, and open solutions: Liferay Portal, Alfresco, JomPortal, Jive, Jahia, etc.

All these products can be divided into several groups:

• heavy commercial solutions for large companies (IBM WebSphere Portal, Oracle Portal 11g, SAP NetWeaver Portal);
• commercial solutions for medium and large companies (DeskWork, Ittilan Portal, WSS Portal, 1C-Bitrix: Corporate portal);
• open (free licenses) solutions for medium and small companies (Liferay Portal, Alfresco, JomPortal, Jive, Jahia).

Next, I will give a brief description of the listed ready-made solutions. The description shows approximate prices for licenses that do not include the portal implementation project. Find out the final license prices and implementation costs from solution providers. From practice, the cost of the implementation project can significantly exceed the cost of licenses:

1. Heavy commercial solutions
   
   
   1. IBM WebSphere Portal ( www.ibm.com ) is a complete portal solution based on the IBM WebSphere platform. A solution with many features for posting, collaboration, and distance learning. The functionality of the system is built on modules - applications that can be improved using WebSphere Portlet Factory. Full automation of any business processes, including routine operations (ordering business cards, ordering the office, applications for staff recruitment, reservation of meeting rooms, etc.) and project management mechanisms with tracking steps, deadlines and assigning users responsible for tasks. Among the shortcomings: a heavy system designed for large companies with a large number of simultaneously working users, the corresponding high cost of ownership of the system. The approximate cost of licenses is 1,500,000 rubles. (either 300 registered licenses, or a server with 2 processors with 2 cores each).
   2. Oracle Portal 11g ( www.oracle.com ) is a complete portal solution based on Oracle WebCenter. Business analytics tools are very well represented, full-fledged teamwork with documents, tasks and projects. Developed tools for automating business processes. Separately, I would like to note the search and indexing of information, both within the portal and outside. Ideal for companies already using products from the same manufacturer. Among the shortcomings: A complex system, you can forget about starting in a short time, the high cost of ownership. If the enterprise already uses corporate systems from another manufacturer, you will have to tinker with integration. The estimated cost of licenses is 600,000 / processor.
   3. SAP NetWeaver Portal Enterprise Portal ( www.sap.com ) is another top-level portal solution. Conveniently implemented functions of integration of various systems - a function of a single point of access to the information system of the company. The main focus on group work, project management and employee communication. One of the key competencies of the portal based on SAP is the management of the company's knowledge base. Allows you to automate existing business processes and optimize workflow. It is possible to access from the portal not only to SAP applications, but also to applications of other developers. It is possible to refine the portal in the SAP Portal Content Studio environment and through the SAP Portal Development Kit. Among the shortcomings: the system is complicated in administration and configuration, the high cost of ownership and scaling. There is no public information about the cost of licenses, but the price level corresponds to the class.
   
   
   
2. Medium-class commercial solutions
   
   
   1. WSS Portal ( www.wss-consulting.ru ) is a ready-made corporate portal that includes a large number of functions, information about the company, application management, pages of divisions and project management. Well implemented: Forums, photo and video gallery, voting and FAQ. Search both portal content and external sources. Distribution of access rights at the document level. Full integration with MS products. WSS Portal is one of the leaders in the market of portals based on MS SharePoint. Among the shortcomings: restrictions associated with the operating system - works only on Windows + MS SharePoint Server 2010, the approximate cost of the license is 450,000 rubles, the cost of the standard implementation (including licenses) is 895,000 rubles.
   2. DeskWork ( www.deskwork.ru ) is a turnkey solution that covers all the basic needs of companies in the corporate portal. Company structure, address book, new employees and birthdays, application and task management. Shared calendars, etc. Of the shortcomings: limitations associated with the operating system - works on Windows. The budget version of the portal based on SharePoint Foundation, the approximate cost of licenses is 120,000 rubles - an unlimited number of users.
   3. Ittilan Portal ( www.ittilan.ru ) - a boxed portal solution based on SharePoint, more than 60 ready-made modules. The main page displays news and events of the company, information about the latest documents and forum messages, birthdays and new employees. Display of key performance indicators of the company (KPI). Project management, electronic document repository and application management module. Among the shortcomings: operating system limitations - works on Windows. Convenient telephone directory and company knowledge base. The approximate cost of licenses is 400,000 rubles.
   4. 1C-Bitrix: Corporate portal ( www.1c-bitrix.ru ) is a boxed intranet, social networking and group work functions are implemented. Project management, CRM features, news feeds, microblogging and workgroups. Automation of routine operations. Integration with MS products (Exchange, AD, SharePoint). Advanced search functions, full-text, by tags, by content, taking into account the rating of documents. The company's knowledge base and group calendars with the ability to integrate with Outlook and ical. Employee training module and staff vacancies. The visual structure of the company. Among the shortcomings: Difficult to refine. Approximate cost (unlimited number of users) 300 000 rub.
   
   
   
3. Open solutions with zero cost of licenses
   
   
   1. Liferay Portal ( www.liferay.com ) is an open source enterprise portal developed on the basis of Java. According to Garthner (2009), one of the top5 horizontal corporate portals, along with IBM, Oracle, SAP and MS. The organization of a single point of access to enterprise resources, a unique display of pages for each user, a convenient user interface, social communication tools, automation of existing business processes, integration with MS Office, company news and a message board, a high degree of scalability, full search for information inside portal and in external sources. Support for free and commercial DBMS. Among the shortcomings: poorly adapted for Russian companies, difficult to work on. The cost of licenses of the basic version is not, it is possible to purchase a version of Liferay Portal Enterprise Edition differs mainly in the presence of professional support (24x7).
   2. Alfresco ( www.alfresco.com ) is a ready-made intranet system for managing enterprise content. The open source system, the main difference from Liferay, is the emphasis on working with documents (document management), it is better represented in Alfresco than in other open source solutions. Document support for MS office, version control and performance discipline, document journal, etc. Like Liferay, it is developed using Java technology. From portal functions: News and events of the company, address book, company structure, automation of business processes. Personal home page. Support for free and commercial DBMS. LDAP authentication. Among the shortcomings: when starting out of the box, it is necessary to refine, difficult to work out. The cost of licenses of the basic version is not, it is possible to purchase a commercial version.
   3. JomPortal - ready corporate portal based on CMS Joomla! An open source system. General information about the company (history, structure, pages of departments). News and events of the company, information about birthdays and newly hired employees. Surveys and questionnaires of employees. Project and application management. Electronic document repository, forum and company knowledge base (wiki). Video and photo albums. Social network features. LDAP authentication. Integration with 1C. There is no license cost, it is possible to purchase technical support.
   
   
   

Cloud solutions

Cloud solutions include:

Bitrix24 ( www.bitrix24.ru approximate cost - 9900 rubles / month with an unlimited number of users and 100 GB of space in the cloud,

Simple business ( www.prostoy.ru ) approximate cost - 1000 rubles / month with an unlimited number of users and 10 GB of space in the cloud,

Teamtools ( www.teamtools.ru ) approximate cost - 700 rubles / month with an unlimited number of users and 5 GB of space in the cloud, etc.

Modern cloud solutions largely repeat the basic functionality of ready-made portal solutions, with the possible exception of integration with other corporate systems used in the company.

The advantages of cloud solutions are a reduction in fixed costs associated with the cost of owning a server, system software, lower PC requirements (essentially I / O terminals are needed, and all logic is processed in the cloud), ease of scaling and deployment speed (if I need to open a new office, just install a PC and organize access to the Internet), reducing the costs associated with software administration, territorial independence (access to the portal from anywhere in the EU s access to the Internet).

But all these advantages (with the possible exception of renting licenses) can also be achieved by deploying a turnkey solution in the cloud when renting a server (dedicated server) - an approximate cost is 3000 rubles / month (1 CPU Core i3-2100 (3.1GHz 2 cores), RAM 8GB, HDD 1Tb) or space in the data center rack (sollocation) - the approximate cost of 2000 rubles / month 1 unit.

The disadvantages of cloud solutions are not the business’s willingness to bring corporate information to the outside, the complexity of integration with other corporate systems, low network bandwidth, lack of trust in providers of such services, three possible points of failure (in fact, there are three responsible: the cloud solution provider, provider, IT unit or system administrator), security related issues.

findings

In this review, I first and foremost tried in simple language to describe the diversity of portal solutions present in our market, and based on the basic needs and size of companies, to give a guideline in the direction of finding a suitable solution.

To date, any company can find a portal solution for taste, budget and list of tasks.

Developing a custom portal solution based on existing platforms does not make much sense for two reasons:

• there is a large number of ready-made solutions and the development of a custom solution is unlikely to be more functional or cost-effective;
• Supporting a custom solution may be more expensive than a production run.

Heavy commercial solutions are more suitable for large, distributed companies with a large number of working users. Ideal for companies already using products from one of the major manufacturers (IBM, SAP, Oracle).

Commercial solutions of the middle class are more suitable for medium-sized companies. Products in this class cover most of the needs of a regular business.

Reference points for selection are as follows:

• the number of simultaneously working users is up to 3000 people;
• budget up to 1,000,000 rubles;
• availability of successful projects at the solution provider;
• personal sympathy for the product, the presence of professional support.

Open functionality solutions are close to commercial software and cover most of the needs of a typical enterprise. The zero cost of licenses seriously cheapens the project. Recently, the open source market has been developing dynamically, and the problem of the lack of professional technical support that has been felt until recently is leaving.

The guidelines for choosing a solution in this segment are:

• number of simultaneously working users up to 1000 people;
• budget up to 400,000 rubles;
• availability of successful projects at the solution provider;
• availability of professional support.

Systems offered as SaaS service (cloud) are more suitable for the market of small companies. The main arguments for: low starting costs, territorial independence.

Cloud solutions are less suitable for medium-sized businesses for the following reasons: the complexity of integration with other corporate systems, the unwillingness of business to take corporate information to the outside.