Mashups Versus Portals
Mashups and portals are both content aggregation technologies. Portals are an older technology designed as an extension to traditional dynamic Web applications, in which the process of converting data content into marked-up Web pages is split into two phases: generation of markup "fragments" and aggregation of the fragments into pages. Each markup fragment is generated by a "portlet", and the portal combines them into a single Web page. Portlets may be hosted locally on the portal server or remotely on a separate server.
Portal technology defines a complete event model covering reads and updates. A request for an aggregate page on a portal is translated into individual read operations on all the portlets that form the page ("render" operations on local, JSR 168 portlets or "getMarkup" operations on remote, WSRP portlets). If a submit button is pressed on any portlet on a portal page, it is translated into an update operation on that portlet alone (processAction on a local portlet or performBlockingInteraction on a remote, WSRP portlet). The update is then immediately followed by a read on all portlets on the page.
Portal technology is about server-side, presentation-tier aggregation. It cannot be used to drive more robust forms of application integration such as two-phase commit.
Mashups differ from portals in the following respects:
| Portal | Mashup | |
|---|---|---|
| Classification | Older technology, extension to traditional Web server model using well-defined approach | Using newer, loosely defined "Web 2.0" techniques |
| Philosophy/approach | Approaches aggregation by splitting role of Web server into two phases: markup generation and aggregation of markup fragments | Uses APIs provided by different content sites to aggregate and reuse the content in another way |
| Content dependencies | Aggregates presentation-oriented markup fragments (HTML, WML, VoiceXML, etc.) | Can operate on pure XML content and also on presentation-oriented content (e.g., HTML) |
| Location dependencies | Traditionally, content aggregation takes place on the server | Content aggregation can take place either on the server or on the client |
| Aggregation style | "Salad bar" style: Aggregated content is presented 'side-by-side' without overlaps | "Melting Pot" style - Individual content may be combined in any manner, resulting in arbitrarily structured hybrid content |
| Event model | Read and update event models are defined through a specific portlet API | CRUD operations are based on REST architectural principles, but no formal API exists |
| Relevant standards | Portlet behavior is governed by standards JSR 168, JSR 286 and WSRP, although portal page layout and portal functionality are undefined and vendor-specific | Base standards are XML interchanged as REST or Web Services. RSS and Atom are commonly used. More specific mashup standards such as EMML are emerging. |
The portal model has been around longer and has had greater investment and product research. Portal technology is therefore more standardized and mature. Over time, increasing maturity and standardization of mashup technology will likely make it more popular than portal technology because it is more closely associated with Web 2.0 and lately Service-oriented Architectures (SOA). New versions of portal products are expected to eventually add mashup support while still supporting legacy portlet applications. Mashup technologies, in contrast, are not expected to provide support for portal standards.
Read more about this topic: Mashup (digital)