Can a Java portlet be embedded in an ASP.NET page?

Question

We have some portlets created by a team working on a JEE site.

They would like to include one of these portlets within a site I manage, which is ASP.NET.

Aside from solutions like iframes, is it possible to embed a Java portlet within an ASP.NET page?

(Note: I don't have much Java/portlet experience, so please take that into consideration in your answer)

UPDATE

Is this relevant to my question?

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13174_01/alui/devdoc/docs60/Portlets/Basics/Hello_World_Portlet_NET.htm

Answer 1

The short answer is yes - this is technically possible.

You could expose the Java portlet using WSRP. The Java portal server will need support being a WSRP producer. The Java portlets will need to strictly adhere to the spec to avoid things like URL rewriting issues, so your Java folks will have to test the app for conformance.

I don't know much about the ASP.NET stack, but I know Sharepoint supports WSRP. If your portlet consumer isn't a Portal server, I don't know how much work would be involved in consuming the web service directly - you'd have to study the spec.

Answer 2

While theoretically the answer is WSRP - cross vendor WSRP has always been challenging (though Oracle Portal uses it internally for example) - especially since WSRP 1.0 omitted Authentication and other important pieces.

In my experience your best bet is either:

1. Uses AJAX or similar to load a full-page version of your portlet, and rely on SSO or shared secrets to handle authentication
2. Write a slim webpart that talks over REST/SOAP to a backend service that's shared between a portlet and webpart (e.g. exposes servlet/Webservice endpoints in the portlet webapp)