Dwight Raum - The Johns Hopkins University

Owned by Jonathan Markow
Last updated: Jul 07, 2009Version comment
3 min read

Biography

I have had the good fortune of being around at the right time for many exciting projects.  While attending Virginia Tech, I interned with the Blacksburg Electronic Village, and then later worked for a local ISP called NRVnet.  This exposure in the mid-90's, just as the Internet and the Web started to take off, was invaluable and prepared me for much of my forthcoming career.  Since my graduation in 1996 with a degree in Management Science, every aspect of my career has involved Internet and Web technology.

After initially working in systems and application administration on SunOS and Windows NT, I began to work more closely with LDAP directory systems and the Microsoft Windows SAM database.  I developed primitive identity management tools to manage and automate these systems.  Around 1998, my course changed towards web and database application development.  Through the ensuing years, I worked extensively in Cold Fusion, ASP, Visual Basic, JavaScript, and PowerBuilder using Informix, Oracle, Sybase, and MS SQL Server.  As my experience and technical ability progressed, I architected and implemented several public, secure and high traffic websites.

In 2001 I started working for Johns Hopkins, primarily supporting enterprise directory efforts.  In 2004 my responsibilities expanded to include:

  • myJH - the Hopkins affiliate portal, serving over 60,000 Faculty, Staff, Students and Physicians.  This is an uPortal 3.x installation, and one of the first 3.x deployments.
  • Enterprise Directory - the core of our identity management toolset, our Johns Hopkins Enterprise Directory(JHED), using Active Directory, automates identity creation/deletion, and provides tools for user self service.
  • Single-Sign-On - we started using CA's SiteMinder in 2004, and now have over 300 applications and sites using SSO in conjunction with our Enterprise Directory.  We also are members of InCommon, and have implemented several dozen external services using Shibboleth.
  • Web Hosting - Hopkins uses SiteExecutive for enterprise web content management.  With several thousand distributed content contributors, our CMS originates content for most of our high traffic domains.
  • Application Development and Integration - we also work extensively with existing applications and services to integrate them into myJH.  Though this can be as simple as SSO, often integration requires custom development.  This team has diverse application experience, including expertise in:  Cold Fusion, Java, Spring, JQuery, ASP.NET, VB, XML, and SQL Server. 

Having responsibility for this crosscut of technology and projects puts me in a unique position that provides perspective across the organizational challenges, technical hurdles, and operational issues of standing up a successful uPortal instance.

Platform

Though much of my experience is as a technologist, as a member of the uPortal Steering Committee I will focus on returning higher value from uPortal.  I define value in two ways: the speed with which uPortal can improve user productivity, and amount of technical resources required to implement it.  I believe that with an increased emphasis on improved user/administrative functionality and the development of reference implementations, minimal development efforts could yield maximum increases in adoption.  Here are some areas I would like to evangelize:

  • Increased focus on a modular, services based approach       
  • Simplified integration of content and applications
  • Simplified code deployment and management
  •  Better delegated and distributed administration capabilities
  • Reference models for organization, integration and implementation - examples of how to do it right, framework implementation, portal admin, organization
  • Operational tools for monitoring and logging
  • Less focus on backend technologies and more focus on tools for portal administration and ease of use
  • Stronger and more organized QA process
  • Partnerships with other major open source initiatives
  • Greater input and feature prioritization by and for end-users/administrators

This list, though not exhaustive, reflects some key areas to focus on for uPortal.  uPortal has a demonstrated track record of adoption and value, but there are barriers to adoption.  As a community, we must do everything possible to reduce these barriers.