Implementing an External-Facing Portal (New) 

Technical Data

Function is	New
Release	Software Component ●      Component: SAP NetWeaver ●      Release: 7.0 ●      Support Package: Stack 6
Assignment to Application Component	EP-PIN-NAV
Country Setting	Valid for all countries

Use

Implementing an external-facing portal extends the capabilities of SAP NetWeaver Portal by enabling large companies to provide information, services and applications to customers, vendors and partners in a public web portal that performs well over the Internet and operates in a manner similar to standard, customizable web site.

To enable and ease the implementation of a Web portal, the SAP NetWeaver Portal includes tools for creating an external-facing portal. The portal offers support of standard Web-like behavior, quickly putting casual and first-time portal visitors at ease. It provides the means for customizing the portal look and feel to provide a fresh and updated Web site look for a public audience. And it reduces the number of resources transmitted over the web, increasing the performance for Internet users, which is especially important for users who access the portal over low-bandwidth connections and dial-up networks.

Although not always appropriate for certain applications which require a large number of resources and support of the SAP NetWeaver client framework functionality, an external-facing portal using SAP NetWeaver Portal can help companies boost their portal project ROI by using the same platform for the company's Internet and Intranet implementations.

For an overview of this IT scenario variant and its processes, see Implementing an External-Facing Portal.

For detailed reference documentation, see Implementing an External-Facing Portal.

Effects on System Administration

An external facing portal enables anonymous and self-registered users. System administrators must enable the use of the portal for anonymous users, and set the users and groups to which anonymous and self-registered users are mapped.