Please refer to detailed architecture documentation here (ReadTheDocs link).

Designing Services

The Portal provides the following design-time features:

Service Design and Creation (SDC): visual design tools for Services
Policy creation (editing and conflict identification tools)
Visual design tools for Analytic Applications (out-of-scope for first ONAP release)

Instantiating Services

The Portal offers a Virtual Instantiation Deployment (VID) GUI to trigger SO instantiation of Services and components that have been certified and distributed for production. These services may include:

Infrastructure Services (such as compute and storage resources)
Network Services (Virtual Network Functions)
Application Services (such as a load-balancing function)

VID reads the models created in SDC, and, in turn, forwards the appropriate information to SO during the Service instantiation process.

See the Installing and Running the ONAP Demos page for a scenario that uses the VID interface.

Administration

From the ONAP Portal, administrators:

access the same functionality accessible to users
manage users and application admins
onboard applications and widgets (developed using the Portal as a platform)
edit the functional menu

User Guide

The forthcoming User Guide will provide a comprehensive user-focused view of the capabilities of the Portal.

The Portal as a Developer Platform: Adding Applications and Widgets

For developers who wish to add applications that interact with ONAP components, and offer a user interface exposed through the Portal, there is a Portal Software Development Kit (SDK). This SDK includes bundled tools, technologies, and built-in capabilities such as services, APIs, and User Interface controls. By adhering to the SDK, developers create applications that have a consistent look and feel, and can interact with other applications. Applications can be developed as full web pages or as functional widgets to facilitate a seamless user experience

Applications and widgets developed using the Portal SDK are onboarded via the tools available to an Portal Administrator. The Administrator creates or assigns roles for the application, and makes the application visible to users via menus or links.

Portal Platform Main Components

Portal Core Integration: APIs in the SDK provide simplified integration between the ONAP Portal Core and ONAP applications. By default, any application built on the SDK will have implicit integration with the Portal Core.

Centralized Access Control: The Portal core acts as a gatekeeper for all ONAP applications. Site administrators decide who gets access to which applications with a distributed access management scheme.

Common UI Controls: These are used to ensure a common look and feel and a consistent user experience.

Context-Aware UI Controls: Since the ONAP Portal Core serves both as the point of entry and as the provider of context-aware menus and UI controls, it can ensure that when a user jumps from one application to another, the application menu items remain consistent and comply with the user’s access level. (This property of access control is called "Single Sign-On (SSO)".)

Visualization & Reporting Engine: This component is used to develop analytical reports and visualizations on AVP / RCloud / RSpeed / RAPTOR.

Collaborative Services: Collaboration services include video, text chatting, and screen sharing.

Web Component & Widget Development Framework: This framework is used to build widgets and visual components that will be hosted on the ONAP Portal Core. It has access to services exposed by ONAP applications running in separate environments.

Management for Internal/External Users: The administrators will import, or integrate with, internal and external users.

Dashboards: The Portal provides customizable dashboards tailored for each user, based on their access level. Dashboards are comprised of widgets that provide summary content hosted by applications.

Application Administration: Portal Core administrators can on-board and manage applications.

Services Registration/Discovery: Applications can publish or discover services & APIs.