WAS v8.5 > Set up the application serving environment > Administer nodes and resources > Administer stand-alone nodes using the administrative agent
Administrative agent
An administrative agent provides a single interface to administer multiple application servers with stand-alone nodes in environments such as development, unit test, or that portion of a server farm that resides on a single machine.
The administrative agent and application servers must be on the same machine, but we can connect to the machine from a browser or wsadmin on another machine.
Registered nodes must have the same products as the administrative agent, and the products must be at the same version levels on the registered node and the administrative agent. This requirement is enforced because the administrative agent must have a matching environment in order to handle all of the administrative capabilities of the registered node. A node is not allowed to register with an administrative agent unless that node has an identical set of products and versions.
If you were previously running on v7.0.0.11 or earlier, and have an administrative agent with a managed node that has mismatched products or versions, when we migrate to v8.0, that administrative agent will not be able to start the subsystem for any mismatched nodes. Update these nodes to have the same products and versions as the administrative agents, restart the servers on the node and then restart the administrative agent, before the administrative agent can resume managing these registered nodes
An administrative agent can monitor and control multiple application servers on one or more nodes. Use the application servers only to run the applications. By using a single interface to administer the application servers, you reduce the overhead of running administrative services in every application server.
We can use the administrative agent to install applications on application servers, change application server configurations, stop and restart application servers, and create additional application servers.
Example topology of multiple application servers managed by an administrative agent
The following example topology shows machine A with an administrative agent and two application servers, Profile01 and Profile02, that are registered with the administrative agent. The application servers on machine A each communicate with a remote web server on machine B through the web server plug-in. Firewalls provide additional security for the machines. Read the topic on planning to install WAS for further information on the topology.
Related
Administer nodes and resourcesCreate management profiles with administrative agents
Administer stand-alone nodes using the administrative agent
registerNode command
deregisterNode command