http://216.187.231.34/akc/servlet/DisplayServlet?url=DisplayNoteURL&reportId=260&statementId=213&reportId=260

This is a guide for beginers allowing them to create their first web application under tomcat and a first page.

http://216.187.231.34/akc/servlet/DisplayServlet?url=DisplayNoteURL&reportId=224&statementId=177&reportId=224

At the following link you will find jetspeed/portlet related documentation and related work I had done some time last year.

I am not sure how much of this stuff is still relevent in portlets.

/akc/servlet/DisplayServlet?url=NotesURL&ownerUserId=satya&folderName=Java-Portlets

Additional references

1. How to use aspire portlet

2. Source code for aspire portlet

Not one technology and one tool can serve every purpose. Depending on the task at hand tools can be customized to do an effective job of that task. There are constant reports in the press that IT has a strong skills shortage while the same IT is laying off on a regular basis. The disconnect is coming because IT is not capitalizing on two important resources. The legacy programmers (Mainframe, as400, cobol, relational developers) and new hires. If IT can effectively use these knowledgable and less expensensive resources to develop dynamically driven web pages on a universal and free platform like Java and Tomcat, then they solve the problem not only for themselves but for the whole economy as well.

I could have called this release "The parts release" or the "AKC release". "The parts release" because this build contains the consolidation of the basic plumbing for incorporating parts into Aspire. This release also adds around 7 parts to the distribution. "The AKC Release" because the major story of this release is actually an application that is build on Aspire build 18 called "Aspire Knowledge Central".

AKC is a content management system with dual purposes. Geneal public can manage folders worth of information for their own or public reference on the AKC site. AKC can also be used to effectively manage dynamic web pages on third party web sites without the inconvenience of ftps and manually creating links to those ftped documents.

Visit Release notes for more details

If you are an Oracle shop, you can very effectively utilize your PL/SQL developers to be java based web developers in a very short time. This is accomplished by using a J2EE/XML based toolset/product called Aspire/J2EE. Aspire/J2EE is an open source tool developed by Active Intellect, Inc. Aspire/J2EE allows PL/SQL programmers to produce J2EE applications declaratively and quickly. Aspire/J2EE also allows PL/SQL programmers to become J2EE programmers in a gradual manner.

Click on the above link to read more.

http://www.onjava.com/lpt/a/4158

"Qualities of a Good Middle-Tier Architecture" article on O'Reilly.

Aspire in combination with Tomcat presents a very viable and cost-effective option for generating XML directly and declaratively from relational databases. Developers will start by choosing a set of SQL statements or stored procedures. Developers will then arrange these assets into a calling hierarchy in a configuration file. Aspire will execute this hierarchical data definition and returns a java based hierarchical data set. Aspire has pre-defined transformations that can convert this hierarchical data set into varieties of XML formats. Aspire also allows you to transform the resulting XML using XSLT via JAXP. The final XML or HTML can then be sent to the browser or consumed programmatically.

In addition to SQL and Stored-Procedures, you can also use File readers, java classes, and potentially others in their place. These assets are called relational adapters producing relational data sets. New relational adapters can be written quite easily for other enterprise data sources when needed.

The main focus of this article to allow programmers to quickly download Aspire and start generating XML from data bases. This is a cook-book/tutorial like approach that tells you everything you need to get started and be on your way to generate XML with very little coding. This article also encourages see-before-you-paint approach to web page development, meaning you can see your data on the web page as XML or text first before actually writing code for that page. This is very useful for debugging and discovering available fields in the data.

Look here for a blog of the Aspire product Aspire blog

Take a look at Aspire content folders: Aspire public folders

More architectural pictures