1)Do i have to connect Rational Application Developer(RAD) on my machine with the WebSphere Application/Portel Server. I cant figure it out how to connect the RAD with WAS/WPS
You may have the local
test environment installed, especially if you installed the WebSphere Portal Server (WPS) toolset. If that's the case, you have a local test environment.
Alternatively, if you have a test portal server, you can connect to it as a remote host. Just look for the connect as remote when setting up the WPS to test against. You need the IP address, port, and admin rights when connecting.
2) The portlets developed using RAD can be deployed on the WPS and accessed from other machines.
There's many stages of access, I guess. You can just export your portlet applications as a war file, then anyone can deploy them on their portal server.
When you deploy your portlet, just give all users rights to access it - then any user can add it to their page and play around with it. That's pretty easy to do. Actually, I think that's the default access right when you deploy it - that any logged in user can see it.
3) If i want to give access to portlets to specific users, do i have to deal with ldap directory or with WAS/WPS.
Are the users already set up as users in your portal server? All user rights access to portlets is done through a fairly handsome user interface provided by the portal server. There's no need to fiddle around with LDAP or a database. Now, having said that, all the usernames and group information is actually stored in an LDAP server and/or database, so someone, at some time, has to have created a connection to that WebSphere Member Manager database, but after that's done, you can keep your fingers clear of the LDAP server.
I've got lots of tutorials on using Rational Application Developer to create portlets and deploy to WPS. I think I use WPS 5.1, but the development end is practically identical. Check out the tutorials, and tell your friends about them. Feel free to pick up my portlet development book too, while you're at it.
Free Multimedia Tutorials on Developing Portlets with Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Portal Server -Cameron McKenzie [ September 10, 2008: Message edited by: Cameron Wallace McKenzie ]
