1. A method for providing data to portlets comprising: registering, with a portal server, a plurality of portlets executing on a client to determine by the portal server a type of data required by each of the plurality of portlets, wherein the registering establishes a portlet context for handling future data requests received from the portlets at the portal server for each of the plurality of portlets, and wherein the plurality of portlets are organized into a common data set; determining, at the portal server, responsive to registering the plurality of portlets as a common data set, a type of information associated with one each one of the plurality of portlets in the common data set; initializing, at the portal server, responsive to determining the type of information, a data acquisition process to obtain the determined type of information from a data source for each one of the plurality of portlets in the common data set; acquiring data corresponding to the type of information from the data source at the portal server using the initialized data acquisition process; the portal server placing the acquired data in a data store associated with the portal server; receiving a data request at the portal server for data of the determined type from at least one of the plurality of portlets; aggregating data for the plurality of portlets in the common data set into an aggregated data set at the portal server in response to the data request; and responding to the data request by transmitting the aggregated data set to the client, wherein the client uses the aggregated data set to satisfy the data request and to provide data to at least one other portlet in the common data set.