Application edition manager

The application edition manager ensures interruption-free production application deployments. Interruption-free deployment prevents loss of service when we install an application update in the environment.

The application edition manager provides an application versioning model that supports multiple deployments of the same application in the Intelligent Management cell. Each deployment has a unique edition name. The application edition manager allows us to select the edition to activate on an Intelligent Management cluster, so that we can perform a rollout of an application update or revert to a previous level.

The application edition manager is fully integrated with Intelligent Management, interacting with the on demand router (ODR), dynamic workload balancing, and the application placement manager. This integration ensures predictable application behavior when applying application updates, and a smooth transition from one application edition to another while the system continues to manage the application performance goals. We can access application update processes with the administrative console, including edition activation across the application servers. Scripting application programming interfaces enable the integration of edition management functions with automated application deployment.

Application editions are supported for Java EE applications, including EAR files, and batch applications that conform to one of the batch programming models. The following table summarizes the supported features, which vary depending on the type of application that we are using.

Application type	Multiple editions of applications	Application rollout	Interruption-free application update, driven by the ODR and HTTP communication	Validation mode	Concurrent activation
Managed Web applications, including PHP applications	Supported	Supported	Supported	Supported	Supported
IIOP, EJB, or JMS applications	Supported	Supported	Not supported1	Not supported	Not supported
Unmanaged Web applications	Supported	Not supported	Not supported	Not supported	Supported
WebSphere Application Server Community Edition applications	Supported	Supported	Supported	Supported	Supported
SIP applications	Supported	Supported	Supported2	Supported	Supported
Converged HTTP-SIP applications	Supported	Supported	Supported2	Supported	Supported

¹ The ODR does not support communication with IIOP. Any EJB, JMS, or IIOP components called directly by an external client cannot utilize this feature.

² This feature is driven by the ODR and HTTP/SIP communication.

WAS includes an administrative function called rollout update. Rollout update provides a basic application upgrade, but is not interruption-free. The application edition manager is the preferred way to upgrade applications.

Related:

Application edition manager concepts