Using Portal Solution to Integrate Corporate Resources

Client

The client is Gazprom, one of the largest multinational companies in Russia.

Problem

The personnel of the company work with a large number of software solutions, information resources and systems. These resources can be accessed only from the local network of the company. If the user is outside of the local network, he cannot use the internal resources. That is why there appeared the need to develop a system that will allow the personnel to work efficiently outside of the office having all needed resources within reach.

Also a revision of several existing systems was required within the project framework, for instance, revision of the internal web-resources catalogue and telephone directory, and creation of the new sub-system for mobile phones ordering.

Solution

The integration of existing systems using portal technologies is one of the choices for merging software products and resources into a single system that will provide access functionality not only within the company's local network, but also outside it. That is why IBM WebSphere Portal was chosen as an integration solution.

IBM WebSphere Portal is one of the leading solutions on the market of platforms for building Internet-portals. It works on the base of IBM WebSphere Application Server and supports open portal framework for the integration of the various business content. The Portal is a system into which all existing systems of Gazprom are integrated, including file resources, e-mail, web site, various directories, legal, archive systems, etc.

To integrate resources we both used bundled WebSphere portlets and developed custom ones to meet specific client's requirements, for example, an independent application for mobile phones ordering that was developed on Java as a separate portlet.

The organization of more effective joint usage of the sub-systems was another goal of the integration. We developed a data indexing mechanism and common search that uses indexes for this purpose, and also the system of unified user authentication in all sub-systems (Single-sign-on) was implemented.

Benefits for Customer

• The integration of all existing systems into a common system was performed to allow more effective management of the resources;
• New functional modules were developed and new possibilities were implemented;
• Used technological solutions allowed increasing efficiency and productivity of the system significantly.