Glossary | HCL Digital Experience
This glossary includes terms and definitions for HCL Digital Experience.
The following cross-references are used in this glossary:
- See refers the reader from a term to a preferred synonym, or from an acronym or abbreviation to the defined full form.
- See also refers the reader to a related or contrasting term.
A
access control
In computer security, the process of ensuring that users
can access only those resources of a computer system for which they
are authorized.
aggregation
The structured collection of data objects for subsequent
presentation within a portal.
Ajax
A design approach and a set of techniques for delivering
rich Internet applications (RIAs) using open web formats, for example,
HTML, CSS and JavaScript; and rendering using a browser engine.
Ajax portlet
A normal server side portlet that uses lots of JavaScript
and Ajax technologies and less Java and Java server pages.
anonymous user
A user who does not use a valid user ID and password to
log into a site.
applet
A program that performs a specific task and is usually portable
between operating systems. Often written in Java, applets can be downloaded
from the Internet and run in a web browser.
application server
A server program in a distributed network that provides
the execution environment for an application program.
Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
See Ajax.
authenticated user
A portal user who has logged in to the portal with a valid
account (user ID and password). Authenticated users have access to
all public places.
authentication
A security service that provides proof that a user of a
computer system is genuinely who that person claims to be. Common
mechanisms for implementing this service are passwords and digital
signatures. Authentication is distinct from authorization; authentication
is not concerned with granting or denying access to system resources.
authorization
The process of granting a user, system, or process either
complete or restricted access to an object, resource, or function.
B
B2B
See business-to-business.
B2C
See business-to-consumer.
B2E
See business-to-employee.
bind
To establish a connection between software components on
a network using an agreed-to protocol. In web services, the bind operation
occurs when the service requestor invokes or initiates an interaction
with the service at run time using the binding details in the service
description to locate, contact, and invoke the service.
bookmark
A customizable, graphical link to databases, views, documents,
web pages, and newsgroups.
business-to-business (B2B)
Refers to Internet applications that exchange information
or run transactions between businesses.
business-to-consumer (B2C)
Refers to the subset of Internet applications that exchange
information or run transactions between businesses and consumers.
business-to-employee (B2E)
A business model that supports electronic communications
between a business and its employees.
C
CA
card
WML document that provides user-interface and navigational
settings to display content on mobile devices.
cascading style sheet (CSS)
A file that defines a hierarchical set of style rules for
controlling the rendering of HTML or XML files in browsers, viewers,
or in print.
certificate authority (CA)
A trusted third-party organization or company that issues
the digital certificates. The certificate authority typically verifies
the identity of the individuals who are granted the unique certificate.
client side aggregation (CSA)
Aggregation based on JavaScript and XSLT transformations
that are executed on the client.
cloud application
An application that is extended to be accessible through
the Internet. Cloud applications use large data centers and powerful
servers that host web applications and web services.
cloud computing
A computing platform where users can have access to applications
or compute resources, as services, from anywhere through their connected
devices. A simplified user interface and application programming interface
(API) makes the infrastructure supporting such services transparent
to users.
collaboration
The ability to connect customers, employees, or business
partners to the people and processes in a business or organization,
in order to facilitate improved decision-making. Collaboration involves
two or more individuals with complementary skills interacting together
to resolve a business problem.
collaborative components
UI-neutral API methods and tag libraries that allow developers
to add Lotus collaborative functionality to their portlets.
collaborative filtering
Personalization technology that calculates the similarity
between users based on the behaviors of a number of other people and
uses that information to make recommendations for the current user.
collaborative portal
A highly personalized desktop-to-web tool designed for specific
audiences and communities of users that organizes information, applications,
and services for effective community building at the corporate level
and for personal use by individuals.
concrete portlet
A logical representation of a portlet object distinguished
by a unique configuration parameter (PortletSettings).
confirmable methods
Interface methods that exist on each modifiable interface
of a portal resource that allow users to determine whether a modification
can be performed or not.
connector
A servlet that provides a portlet access to external sources
of content, for example, a news feed from a website of a local television
station.
consumer portal
A portal that uses the portlets that a producer portal provides.
content item
Web page content stored in the form of elements, equivalent
to a web page in a traditional website. The look and feel of a content
item when displayed in a website will depend on what authoring template
is used to create the content item and what presentation template
is used to display the content.
content management
Software designed to help businesses manage and distribute
content from diverse sources.
content partner
See HCL content partner.
content provider
A source for content that can be incorporated into a portal
page as a portlet.
controller
A modifiable instance of a portal model which allows to
modify the topology of the model, create and delete resources, and
create modifiable instances of existing resources.
cooperative portlets
Two or more portlets on the same web page that interact
by sharing information.
creation context
A context that defines immutable properties of a resource
that you can create
CSS
D
DB2
A family of HCL licensed programs for relational database
management.
deck
An XML document that contains a collection of WML cards.
default portal page
The page that displays to a user at initial portal deployment
and before the user completes enrollment. Sometimes used as a synonym
for home page.
default public place
A place whose membership automatically includes all portal
users and which appears in the Places selector for every user. A user
is always a member of this place.
derived page
One or more child pages that have a shared layout that is
inherited from the properties of the parent page.
differential page rendering (DPR)
Renders only those parts of a portal page that were affected
by the a user interaction.
document type definition (DTD)
The rules that specify the structure for a particular class
of SGML or XML documents. The DTD defines the structure with elements,
attributes, and notations, and it establishes constraints for how
each element, attribute, and notation can be used within the particular
class of documents.
drawer
A category of widgets in the Lotus Mashups Workshop toolbox
that supports drag and drop user actions.
DTD
dynamic layout
Standard portal layout that consists of rows or columns
and is persisted in the database.
E
ECM
embedded static page
A static page that is rendered in the content area of the
portal.
enrollment
The process of entering and saving user or user group information
in a portal.
Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
Software and tools designed to enable companies to manage
content and documents, optimize business processes, and enable compliance
with an integrated infrastructure.
Enterprise Information Portal
Software developed by HCL that provides tools for advanced
searching, and content customization and summarization.
Extensible Markup Language (XML)
A standard metalanguage for defining markup languages that
is based on Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).
Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL)
A language for specifying style sheets for XML documents.
Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) is used with
XSL to describe how an XML document is transformed into another document.
F
federated search
A search capability that enables searches across multiple
search services and returns a consolidated list of search results.
G
group
- A collection of users who can share access authorities for protected resources.
- In places, two or more people who are grouped for membership in a place.
governance
The decision making processes in the administration of an
organization. The rights and responsibilities of these processes are
typically shared among the organization's participants, especially
the management and stakeholders.
governance life cycle
A life cycle that represents the states and transitions
that can exist in SOA deployment.
governance processes
A process that ensures that compliance and operational polices
are enforced, and that change occurs in a controlled fashion and with
appropriate authority as envisioned by the business design.
H
helper file
A properties file that HCL Portal provides to ensure
that users specify the correct information that is needed to complete
different types of configuration tasks such as configuring an LDAP
user registry or a database user registry.
home page
The top-level web page of a portal.
HTML
HTTP
HTTP over SSL (HTTPS)
A web protocol for secure transactions that encrypts and
decrypts user page requests and pages returned by the web server.
HTTPS
See HTTP over SSL.
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
A markup language that conforms to the Standard Generalized
Markup Language (SGML) standard and was designed primarily to support
the online display of textual and graphical information, including
hypertext links.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
An Internet protocol that is used to transfer and display
hypertext and XML documents on the web.
I
i-mode
An Internet service for wireless devices.
HCL content partner (content partner)
HCL partner that provides syndicated content for portals.
integrity
In computer security, assurance that the information that
arrives at a destination is the same as the information that was sent.
iwidget
An open-source specification that allows for seamless interoperability
across various platforms and products.
J
JavaScript
A web scripting language that is used in both browsers and
web servers. (Sun)
JavaScript Object Notation
A lightweight data-interchange format that is based on the
object-literal notation of JavaScript. JSON is programming-language
neutral but uses conventions from languages that include C, C++, C#,
Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python.
Jetspeed
The open-source portal that is part of the Jakarta project
by Apache.
L
label
A node in a portal that cannot contain any content, but
can contain other nodes. Labels are used primarily to group nodes
in the navigation tree.
lazy application
An application whose initialization is deferred until first
use.
LDAP
LDAP directory
A type of repository that stores information on people,
organizations, and other resources and that is accessed using the
LDAP protocol. The entries in the repository are organized into a
hierarchical structure, and in some cases the hierarchical structure
reflects the structure or geography of an organization.
light mode
An operation method that enhances portal performance by
improving start-up time and reducing memory consumption in production
environments.
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
An open protocol that uses TCP/IP to provide access to directories
that support an X.500 model and that does not incur the resource requirements
of the more complex X.500 Directory Access Protocol (DAP). For example,
LDAP can be used to locate people, organizations, and other resources
in an Internet or intranet directory.
load balancing
The monitoring of application servers and management of
the workload on servers. If one server exceeds its workload, requests
are forwarded to another server with more capacity.
M
mandatory place
A shared place, either a public place or a restricted place,
in which all portal users must be members. Only portal administrators
can designate a shared place to be a mandatory place. Because membership
is automatic and required, portal users cannot join or leave mandatory
places.
membership
The state of being a portal user and a place member. Membership
in the portal is controlled by the administrator during the installation
and set up of portal servers. Membership in places is controlled by
a place manager, who determines the level of access for each place
member: participant, place designer, or place manager.
mashup
A graphical interface that features two or more reusable
web applications (widgets) presenting seemingly disparate data in
an understandable combination for a specific purpose.
meta search
A search across one or more search engines. A meta search
engine provides a meaningful subset of search functionality through
an abstraction layer that is generic enough to support a wide variety
of search services.
messaging
A method for communication between programs. Messaging can
be synchronous or independent of time.
middleware
Software that acts as an intermediate layer between applications
or between client and server. It is used most often to support complex,
distributed applications in heterogeneous environments.
model view controller (MVC)
A software architecture that separates the components of
the application: the model represents the business logic or data;
the view represents the user interface; and the controller manages
user input or, in some cases, the application flow.
modifiable
An interface for modifying portal resources that exist in
the read only model.
MVC
N
News Industry Text Format (NITF)
An XML-based format that defines the structure and content
of news articles.
News Markup Language (NewsML)
An XML-based format for publishing news-related information.
NewsML
See News Markup Language.
NITF
node
A logical group of managed servers.
O
OCS channel
open content syndication channel (OCS channel)
An XML-based format for syndicated content.
P
page
A node in a portal that can contain content in addition
to labels and other pages. Pages can contain child nodes, column containers,
row containers, and portlets.
participant
A member of a portal place who can visit and use the place.
By default, all portal users are participants in public places.
people awareness
The collaboration feature that provides access to people
from various contexts. People awareness lets you see references to
people and contact people by name through the Sametime online status indicator.
Throughout the portal, wherever you see the name of a person, you
can view the person's online status, send email, initiate a chat,
or share an application via an electronic meeting.
people finder
A portlet that enables users to find, view information about,
and contact individuals in their organization. Administrators can
configure people finder to display information details such as email
address, job title, and location.
person
An individual authenticated by the portal and having a person
record in one or more corporate directories. Persons can be members
of places, public groups within the organization's corporate directory,
or personal groups that a user defines.
person card
An interface that displays information about a registered
user such as phone number and online status (if Sametime is enabled), and
additional details typically found on a business card. Available actions
let you view the person's complete profile and, depending on
how the portal is configured, send email, chat, and link to Lotus
Connections features such as Communities, Activities, and Blogs.
person link
A reference to a person's name or a group name that appears
with the Sametime online
status indicator. The reference lets you view the person's online
status, send an email, start a chat, or share an application using
an electronic meeting, among other actions shown on the person link
menu.
personal group
In Sametime Connect,
a group of people designated by the user as a group. A user can choose
individuals from the public Directory (public group) and create personal
groups, which are then stored locally. Users can add and remove people
from a personal group, whereas the membership of the public group
is defined by the owner of the public Directory.
personalization
The process of enabling information to be targeted to specific
users based on business rules and user profile information.
pervasive computing
The use of a computing infrastructure that supports information
appliances from which users can access a broad range of network-based
services, including Internet-based e-commerce services.
place designer
A member of a place who can edit place layout and bookmarks.
place manager
A member of a place who can edit place membership, layout,
and bookmarks.
place member
A individual or group who has joined or been granted access
to a place. Place members have three levels of access to a place:
manager, designer, and participant.
place template
A format for use in creating a place. The portal provides
a set of default templates for creating various types of places. Portal
administrators may allow users to create, modify, and delete new templates.
policy
A set of rules and actions that are required to be performed
when certain events or status conditions occur in an environment.
Policies are implemented using the IPL.
port
An end point for communication between applications, generally
referring to a logical connection. A port provides queues for sending
and receiving data. Each port has a port number for identification.
port type
An element in a Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
document that comprises a set of abstract operations, each of which
refers to input and output messages that are supported by the web
service.
portal
A single, secure point of access to diverse information,
applications, and people that can be customized and personalized.
portal administration
The place where portal administrators set and maintain basic
collaboration permissions, place records, place membership records,
and server settings for companion products for advanced collaboration.
portal artifacts
Stored in the portal file system. All deliverables of software development are usually
artifacts (otherwise referred to as software components).
portal configuration
The Portal Configuration is stored in the portal configuration database. It consists of
configuration entities. Each portal resource is represented by one portal configuration
entity in the portal database.
portal extension artifacts
Artifacts that belong to components that are installed together
with the portal but are not core portal components.
portal farm
A series of identically configured, stand-alone portal server
instances that offer a way to maintain a highly scalable and highly
available server environment.
portal member
An individual or group who has a user record in the portal
directory (LDAP or other directory) and can log in to the portal.
portal solution release
The solution that is developed by the customer and is based
on HCL Portal. The solution consists of portal configurations,
portal artifacts, and portal extension artifacts and is shared between
multiple users.
portal theme
The style element that gives a place a particular look.
The portal provides several themes, similar to virtual wallpaper,
which can be chosen when creating a place.
portlet
A reusable web module that runs on a portal server. Portlets
have predefined roles such as retrieving news headlines, searching
a database, or displaying a calendar.
portlet API
The set of interfaces and methods that are used by Java
programs running within the portal server environment to obtain services.
portlet application
A collection of related portlets that can share resources
with one another.
portlet container
A column or row that is used to arrange the layout of a
portlet or other container on a page.
portlet control
A portlet registry setting that renders the outer frame
for a portlet.
portlet framework
The set of classes and interfaces that support Java programs
running within the portal server environment.
portlet palette
A web module that enables users to browse available portlets
organized by category, search for individual portlets, and add them
to a portal page by dragging to the desired location.
pre-rendered site
A complete website saved to disk in HTML that can be used
as a live site and displayed to users using either Web Content Manager
or a web server.
presentation template
A template that determines the structure of each web page
in the site and which elements and components are displayed on each
page. HTML defines the default properties and layout of the template.
producer definition
A set of interfaces that are defined for the producer portal.
The producer definition can include the producer service description,
the producer portal URL, and the security setup.
producer portal
A portal that provides portlets as a service so that other
portals, called consumer portals, can use the portlets and make the
portlets available to their users.
property extension database
A database that is used to store additional attributes that
cannot be stored in the LDAP user registry.
provisioning
The process of setting up and maintaining a user's access
to a system.
PSTN
public group
A group of individuals, known to all portal users, that
the administrator has created or that exists in the organization's
corporate directory. Only administrators can modify and manage public
groups.
public place
A shared place that is open to all portal users. The person
who creates the place (and who automatically becomes the place manager)
designates it as a public place during place creation.
public switched telephone network (PSTN)
A communications common carrier network that provides voice
and data communications services over switched lines.
pure server side portlet
A normal server side portlet that uses Java and Java server
pages, but usually uses no JavaScript.
R
registered user
A portal user who has a user ID and password for logging
in to a portal.
Representational State Transfer (REST)
A software architectural style for distributed hypermedia
systems like the World Wide Web. The term is also often used to describe
any simple interface that uses XML (or YAML, JSON, plain text) over
HTTP without an additional messaging layer such as SOAP.
REST
restricted place
A shared place that is open to only those individuals and
groups whom the place creator (or place manager) adds to the place's
membership list. The person who creates the place (and who automatically
becomes the place manager) designates the place as a restricted place
during place creation.
Rich Site Summary (RSS)
An XML-based format for syndicated web content that is based
on the RSS 0.91 specification. The RSS XML file formats are used by
Internet users to subscribe to websites that have provided RSS feeds.
role
A job function that identifies the tasks that a user can
perform and the resources to which a user has access. A user can be
assigned one or more roles.
RSS
See Rich Site Summary.
rules-based personalization
Personalization technology that enables you to customize
web content based on user needs and preferences, and business requirements.
S
search center
A portlet that enables site users to search for keywords.
search collections
A searchable collection of documents that can span multiple
content sources.
search service
A service that is used to define the configuration parameters
for a search collection. A search service can be local, remote, inside
the product, or outside the product.
SecureWay Directory
An LDAP directory that can store user-related data, such
as the user ID, the user name, and passwords.
security
The protection of data, system operations, and devices from
accidental or intentional ruin, damage, or exposure.
security manager
A component that is responsible for authenticating user
logins.
server side aggregation (SSA)
Aggregation based on Java server pages that are executed
on the Server.
service
In service-oriented architecture, a unit of work accomplished
by an interaction between computing devices.
service description
The description of a web service, which can be defined in
any format such as WSDL, UDDI, or HTML.
service provider
A company or program that provides a business function as
a service.
service requester
The application that initiates an interaction with a web
service. The service requestor binds to the service using the published
information and calls the service.
service-oriented architecture (SOA)
A conceptual description of the structure of a software
system in terms of its components and the services they provide, without
regard for the underlying implementation of these components, services
and connections between components.
session bean
An enterprise bean that is created by a client and that
usually exists only for the duration of a single client/server session.
(Sun)
shared place
A place created for a community of people with a common
purpose. Shared places can be public or restricted. The place creator
(who automatically becomes the place manager) specifies whether a
place is public or restricted during place creation.
Short Message Service (SMS)
A service that is used to transmit text to and from a mobile
phone.
single sign-on (SSO)
An authentication process in which a user can access more
than one system or application by entering a single user ID and password.
site area
A component contained in a site framework as a way to group
similar content items. There can be several site areas within one
site framework.
site framework
A structure that consists of a single top-level intelligent
page or site area beneath which are stored other intelligent pages,
site areas, and content items. The hierarchical set of intelligent
pages and site areas define the navigational structure of the website.
site template
A pre-built sample site that can be used to streamline the
process of developing a custom portal.
SMS
source portlet
The portlet that sends the information to other portlets.
SSO
See single sign-on.
staging
The process of moving solution releases from development
to production.
stand-alone static page
A static page that renders the complete browser content.
static page
A portal page that references a static layout.
static layout
The layout of a page that is based on a plain HTML page
that may contain references to portlets.
subscribe
To register to access data published by another application
or system.
subscriber
The consumer of a business service.
T
TAI
target portlet
The portlet that receives the information from the source
portlet
template library
The database, known as the Portal Template Catalog, that
stores place template specifications and portlets forms, subforms,
and profiles.
theme
The style element that gives a place a particular look.
The portal provides several themes, similar to virtual wallpaper,
from which you can choose when creating a place.
transcoding technology
Content adaptation to meet the specific capabilities of
a client device.
transport
The process or protocol mechanism of transferring an XML
message or document between parties as part of a meaningful, reliable
exchange. The most common transports for web services are SOAP/HTTP,
SOAP/HTTPs, and SOAP/JMS.
trust association interceptor (TAI)
The mechanism by which trust is validated in the product
environment for every request received by the proxy server. The method
of validation is agreed upon by the proxy server and the interceptor.
U
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)
A unique address that is used to identify content on the
web, such as a page of text, a video or sound clip, a still or animated
image, or a program. The most common form of URI is the web page address,
which is a particular form or subset of URI called a Uniform Resource
Locator (URL). A URI typically describes how to access the resource,
the computer that contains the resource, and the name of the resource
(a file name) on the computer.
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The unique address of an information resource that is accessible
in a network such as the Internet. The URL includes the abbreviated
name of the protocol used to access the information resource and the
information used by the protocol to locate the information resource.
Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)
A set of standards-based specifications that enables companies
and applications to quickly and easily find and use web services over
the Internet. See also Web service.
URI
URL
user group
A group consisting of one or more defined individual users,
identified by a single group name.
V
W
W3C
WAP
WAR
See Web archive.
WAR file
See Web archive.
Web archive (WAR)
A compressed file format, defined by the Java EE standard,
for storing all the resources required to install and run a web application
in a single file.
Web content library
A library that stores items required for displaying or creating
web content, such as workflow items, an authoring template, a presentation
template, site areas, and content items. Most systems have at least
two web content libraries, one for design items and one for web content.
Web crawler
A type of crawler that explores the web by retrieving a
web document and following the links within that document.
Web service
A self-contained, self-describing modular application that can be published, discovered,
and invoked over a network using standard network protocols. Typically, XML is used to tag the data,
SOAP is used to transfer the data, WSDL is used for describing the services available, and UDDI is
used for listing what services are available. See also Web Services
Description Language.
Web service endpoint
An entity that is the destination for web service messages.
A web service endpoint has a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) address
and is described by a Web Service Definition Language (WSDL) port
element.
Web service interface
A group of operations described by the content of a Web
Service Definition Language (WSDL) 1.1 port element. These operations
can provide access to resource properties and metadata. (OASIS)
Web service semantics (WSDL-S)
A technical specification that defines a mechanism to associate
semantic annotations with web services that are described using Web
Service Description Language (WSDL).
Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
An XML-based specification for describing networked services
as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented
or procedure-oriented information. See also Web
service.
Web Services Interoperability Organization (WSI)
An open industry organization that promotes web services
interoperability across platforms, operating systems, and programming
languages.
Web Services Policy Framework (WS-Policy)
A model and framework for describing the capabilities, requirements,
and general characteristics of a web service as a policy assertion
or a collection of policy assertions.
Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF)
The set of specifications that define the specific rendering
of a Web Services Resource (WS-Resource), the association of that
resource with the web service interface, and the messages that define
the querying and updating of the properties of that resource.
widget
A graphical interface that features two or more reusable
web applications (widgets) presenting seemingly disparate data in
an understandable combination for a specific purpose.
wire
To connect two or more components or cooperative portlets
so that they work together. In an application, wiring identifies target
services; for portlets changes in the source portlet automatically
update the target portlets.
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)
An open industry standard for mobile Internet access that
allows mobile users with wireless devices to easily and instantly
access and interact with information and services.
Wireless Markup Language (WML)
A markup language based on XML that is used to present content
and user interfaces for wireless devices such as cellular phones,
pagers, and personal digital assistants.
workflow
The sequence of activities performed in accordance with
the business processes of an enterprise.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
An international industry consortium set up to develop common
protocols to promote evolution and interoperability of the World Wide
Web.