Interportlet Communication

I came across multiple situations where the client was more interested in providing Interportlet communication. A portal which provides an overview of the data and then on click provides the full information.

Interportlet communication though looks more user friendly has many problems with it:
1. Slow as
- it has to communicate with the back office to get the information
- the page has to hit many back offices based on the no. of portlets displayed
2. Complex to maintain as the configuration(Edit) of the summary portlets does not remain same
3. Storage of the preferences selected on these summary portlets cannot be stored in one table unless they have similar configurations.