How do I administer applications and their environments?
- Establish the application serving environment
- Secure the application serving environment - see Security
- Set up Web access for applications
- Set up resources for applications to use
- Configure class loaders - see development and deployment
- Deploy and administer applications
- Use the administrative clients
- Troubleshoot deployment and administration
Establish the application serving environment
The following tasks involve establishing application serving capability in your network environment, whether you use single or clustered application servers. Servers can be grouped into administrative domains known as nodes and cells.
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- Create WebSphere profiles
Profiles are the files that define a stand-alone Application Server node, a managed node, or a deployment manager node. A profile also includes all of the files that the node can change.
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- Administer nodes
A node is a grouping of managed servers. Use this task to view information about and manage nodes.
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- Add and remove nodes
- Manage node groups
- Cell, deployment managers, nodes, and node agents
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- Administer node agents
Node agents are administrative agents that represent a node to your system and manage the servers on that node. Node agents monitor application servers on a host system and route administrative requests to servers. A node agent is created automatically when a node is added to a cell.
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- Administer cells
When you installed the WAS Network Deployment product, a cell was created. A cell provides a way to group one or more nodes of your Network Deployment product. You probably will not need to reconfigure the cell. Use this task to view information about and manage a cell.
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- Administer configurations
Application server configuration files define the available application servers, their configurations, and their contents. You should periodically save changes to your administrative configuration. We can change the default locations of configuration files, as needed.
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- Configure remote file services
Configuration data for the WAS product resides in files. Two services help you reconfigure and otherwise manage these files: the file transfer service and file synchronization service. By default, the file transfer service is always configured and enabled at a node agent, so you do not need to take additional steps to configure this service. However, you might need to configure the file synchronization service.
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- Administer application servers
Create, configure, and operate application server processes. An application server configuration provides settings that control how an application server provides services for running enterprise applications and their components.
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- Administer other server types
One step in the process of creating an application server is to specify a template. A server template is used to define the configuration settings of the new server. You have the option of specifying the default server template or choosing a template that is based on a server that already exists. The default template will be used if you do not specify a different template when you create the server.
We can create other types of servers, to represent Web servers in your topology, or for other purposes. There are two types of generic servers: (1) Non-Java applications or processes, or (2) Java applications or processes. A custom service provides the ability to plug into a WebSphere application server to define a hook point that runs when the server starts and shuts down.
Documentation:
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Guide me (Web servers)
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- Balance workloads by clustering application servers
To monitor application servers and manage the workloads of servers, use server clusters and cluster members provided by the Network Deployment product.
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- Establishing high availability (HA) for failover
Planning ahead for high availability support is important in order to avoid the risk of a failure without failover coverage. The application server runtime of the infrastructure managed by a high availability manager includes such entities as cells and clusters. These components relate closely to core groups, high availability groups, and the policy that defines the high availability infrastructure. In a properly configured high availability environment, a high availability manager can reassess the environment it is managing and accept new components as they are added to the environment.
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- Administer the UDDI registry
The UDDI Registry is supplied as a J2EE application file, uddi.ear. Change its configuration properties using the assembly tools. Use either the WAS administrative console or the Java Management Extensions (JMX) management interface to manage UDDI Registries.
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Set up Web access for applications
These tasks involve enabling HTTP requests for applications on the application server.
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- Administer communication with Web servers (plug-ins)
The product provides plug-ins for supported Web servers, to enable the Web servers to pass requests to the application server, for applications running on the application server.
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- Administer HTTP sessions
Configure the service that the product provides for managing HTTP sessions: Session Manager.
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- Administer IBM HTTP Server V6.x
The product provides a complementary Web server with its own documentation that can be installed into the information center.
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Set up resources for applications to use
Make a variety of resources available to your applications that are deployed on the application server.
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- Provide access to naming and directory resources (JNDI)
Configure naming. Naming is used by clients of WebSphere Application Server applications to obtain references to objects related to those applications, such as EJB homes. These objects are bound into a mostly hierarchical structure, referred to as a name space. The name space structure consists of a set of name bindings, each consisting of a name relative to a specific context and the object bound with that name.
Documentation:
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- Provide access to relational databases (JDBC resources)
Configure data sources that applications use to access the data from databases.
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- Provide access to messaging resources (default messaging provider)
Use one of various ways to implement a messaging provider for use with WebSphere Application Server. A messaging provider enables use of the Java Messaging Service (JMS) and other message resources in the product.
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- Use IBM service integration technologies
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- Establish workload balancing and high availability (HA) of messaging engines
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- Access Service Integration (SI) bus resources
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Deploy and administer applications
These tasks involve deploying applications onto the application server, then administering the applications.
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- Install applications
Installable modules include EAR, enterprise bean (EJB), WAR, resource adapter (connector or RAR), and application client files.
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- Start and stop applications
We can start an application that is not running (has a status of Stopped) or stop an application that is running (has a status of Started).
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- Update applications
Update deployed applications or modules using the administrative console or wsadmin scripting. Learn which changes are candidates for hot deployment and dynamic reloading, in which one can make various changes to applications and their modules without having to stop the server and start it again.
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- Deploy applications rapidly (WebSphere Rapid Deployment)
Take advantage of new rapid deployment capabilities. WebSphere rapid deployment offers the following advantages: You do not need to assemble your J2EE application files prior to deployment. You do not need to use other installation tools mentioned in this table to deploy the files. Refer to the Rapid deployment tools documentation in the information center.
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- Enhanced EAR files
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- Deploy and administer Web services applications
To deploy Web services that are based on the Web Services for Java 2 platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) specification, we need an enterprise application, also known as an EAR file that has been configured and enabled for Web services. Use either the administrative console or the wsadmin scripting interface to deploy an EAR file.
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Use the administrative clients
A variety of tools are provided for administering the product.
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- Choose an administrative client
and decide among the available administrative clients, including a graphical console, scripting (wsadmin), command line tools, and Java Management Extensions (JMX) programs.
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- Use the administrative console
The administrative console is a Web-based tool that you use to administer the product. The administrative console supports a full range of product administrative activities.
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- Use scripting (wsadmin)
Scripting is a non-graphical alternative that use to configure and manage WebSphere Application Server. The WAS wsadmin tool provides the ability to run scripts. The tool supports a full range of product administrative activities.
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See also:
Troubleshoot deployment and administration
Troubleshoot problems that occur when you are deploying applications onto the application server, or when you are administering an established application serving environment.
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- Troubleshoot deployment
Troubleshoot problems that occur either during deployment or shortly afterwards, when you try to access an application that you just deployed for the first time.
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- Troubleshoot administration
Review some possible causes, based on the error you are seeing.
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See Also
Administering applications and their environments
Overview and new features for administering applications and their environments