The simple answer - it means different things to different people. But, to all of those different people it conveys the same idea - 'a portal is an entrance leading to something grand!'

Ever since I started developing for the web and during my first technical interview (about 9 years ago) this one question has confronted me - "What is a Portal?". Its only today that I got the time to validate my understanding with the accepted definition for the term. And its been an interesting discovery :)

So lets go back in time...when humans barely knew how to use metals, they were building portals...out of stone!

image source: Paulnabrone Portal Dolmen

What we see above is a portal dolmen, these were the grand entrances that our predecessors built for their dead. It was literally a 'gateway to heaven' for these folks at that time.

Then, as civilizations improved and the artist-engineer in us got more and more dominant, so did the portals.

Portals in architecture is a general term used to describe a grand entrance to an important structure. These might have been gates, fortified openings and even windows. 

So, historically portals were used to control entries and exits. Due to the fact that they were among the first things that people experienced while entering that chapel or a palace or a fort, Portals were decorated and fortified with all that was necessary to make them beautiful, safe and secure.

We continue to do this even today. Our portals, the software kind, look a lot less imposing, but they are no less functional in what they achieve.

image source: Duke_Chapel_Portal

Today, our enterprise portals are software infrastructure. A framework that helps integrate information, people and processes across organizational boundaries. This infrastructure serves a myriad purposes. Like fractals, portals can be thought of as fractals, take small building blocks, compose them to work together in many iterations till you end up with a visually appealing image. That's your Portal.

Fractals are a shapes constructed of recursive containment of similar shapes, so are Portals.

What fascinates me about both is that the possibilities of creation are endless. In this age and in this time, we need to be creative, we need to be artists. Artists who create solutions. Most importantly, these are images of infinite complexity, but the building blocks are simple shapes.

Other interesting Facts about Portal:

1. Portal is a city on the Canadian border in north Dakota. Portal sits near the Canadian border and is a major port of entry for road and rail traffic. It is one of three 24-hour ports in North Dakota

2. Portal is a large large vein that carries blood from the digestive tract to the liver.

-Raja-