Outage management portal leveraging back-end resources to create a role and user tailored front-end interface for coordinating outage responses

A portal server comprising:

• at least one processor coupled to memory elements through a system bus;
• a data store configured to manage digitally encoded customization settings, wherein said customization settings are associated with specific users and comprise user established settings, wherein programmatically implemented customizations are configured to utilize the customization settings when outage workplace portals are served to users
• portlet creation software configured to modify a software artifact obtained from at least one presentation source to include data points based upon the obtained outage information, wherein said portlet creation software is further configured to utilize the customization settings from the data store when generating portlets for specific users;
• portlet binding software configured to insert code into an outage management portal, which programmatically links a plurality of otherwise independent portlets, wherein the inserted code causes a state of at least one of the portlets to dynamically change based upon at least one of a user interface and a data update to another of the portlets of the outage workplace portal;
• and
• a portal serving component configured to respond to requests from remotely located clients by serving customized outage workplace portals to the remotely located clients, wherein the served outage workplace portals comprise at least a geography portlet and a system portlet, wherein the geography portlet is configured to graphically present spatially related geographic data illustrating a geographic map corresponding to a network of managed resources, and wherein the system portlet is configured to present a schematic of an operational system within the network of managed resources, wherein each of said served outage workplace portals comprise at least one alert portlet configured to automatically present a notification to at least one user whenever a value of dynamically obtained information or a condition of a set of monitored systems exceeds a previously established boundary, wherein at least one user is indicated within a data store to be an individual responsible for taking corrective actions in regard to a situation indicated by the notification wherein when the notification is presented, a portlet of the outage workplace portal automatically presents communication specific items to each of the at least one users, and wherein when the notification is presented, a portlet of the outage workplace portal automatically presents documents from a content repository related to the indicated situation and relevant as determined by a set of programmatic rules.

A system providing a Web portal comprising:

• at least one processor coupled to one or more memory elements through a system bus;
• computer program code stored in the one or more memory elements, wherein execution of the computer program code by the at least one processor generates the Web portal;
• said Web portal comprising a plurality of portlets, said portlets comprising:
• at least one geography portlet, which incorporates a “mashup” comprising a visual map and related interface controls and overlaid content relating to an outage within a network of managed resources, wherein said overlaid content is based upon information dynamically obtained from a plurality of network accessible data sources, and
• at least one system portlet, which comprises a schematic of an operational system included within the network of managed resources, wherein the schematic presents real-time information obtained from remotely located system monitoring software that is configured to monitor conditions of the network of managed resources, wherein said overlaid content comprises a plurality of user selectable objects, each corresponding to a different managed resource, wherein a selection one of the user selectable objects in the geography portlet results in content of the system portlet dynamically changing to present content related to the selected managed resource, wherein the geography portlet and the system portlet are customized in accordance with a role of a user and with user established customization settings;
• at least one Web 2.0 portlet;
• at least one collaboration portlet;
• and
• at least one alert portlet configured to automatically present a notification to at least one user whenever a value of dynamically obtained information or a condition of the monitored systems exceeds a previously established boundary, wherein at least one user is indicated within a data store to be an individual responsible for taking corrective actions in regard to a situation indicated by the notification wherein when the notification is presented, the collaboration portlet automatically presents communication specific items to each of the at least one users, and wherein when the notification is presented, the Web 2.0 portlet automatically presents documents from the content repository related to the indicated situation and relevant as determined by a set of programmatic rules.