14.1 Preparing the environment

In this chapter, we show you how to set up a fairly complete environment for the Plants by WebSphere application and deploy the EAR file. You will not always need or want to customize the environment as extensively as we do in this chapter. Some steps are optional. If all you want to do is deploy your application quickly, using the WebSphere defaults for directory names, log files, and so forth, skip to 14.3, "Deploying the application" on page 913.

The steps in this section are performed typically by the application deployer. To deploy the Plants by WebSphere application...

1.	Create the DB2 database for Plants by WebSphere. This step is required.

2.	Create an environment variable for Plants by WebSphere server. This step is optional.

3.	Create an appserver to host the application. This step is optional.

4.	Customize the IBM HTTP Server configuration. This step is optional.

5.	Define a JDBC provider, data source, and authentication alias. This step is required if you are not using an Enhanced EAR.

6.	Define virtual hosts. This step is optional and not required if you are using an Enhanced EAR.

If the application to be deployed is a WebSphere Enhanced EAR file, the resources configured in the Enhanced EAR file are created automatically when the application is deployed.