HCL WebSphere Portal roadmap: Production and delivery environment

The production environment are the servers that incoming web traffic accesses to experience the HCL WebSphere Portal. This roadmap is based on a cluster topology. The Configuration Wizard prompts us to select the cluster type:

Static

Default. Group of application servers in a network deployment environment that participates in workload management.

Dynamic

Monitors performance and load information and is able to dynamically create and remove cluster members that are based on the workload. We can add extra nodes to expand the capacity of the dynamic cluster. Before HCL WebSphere Portal 8.5, you were required to install and configure WebSphere Virtual Enterprise to set up a dynamic cluster. Now, the virtual enterprise component is integrated with the application server. Therefore, you do not need to install and configure WebSphere Virtual Enterprise before you set up a dynamic cluster.

Configure the web server plug-in after transfering the database.

Use this roadmap if we are an organization that requires:

• Availability and failover
• Handling of random high load situations (dynamic load balancing)
• Prioritization, health monitoring, and dynamic operations
• Manage cluster nodes with a single administrative interface, the deployment manager

This example clustered topology includes two horizontal nodes managed in the same cell. The nodes in the cluster use a common LDAP and database server. A remote search server is depicted too. In a cluster environment, we must use a remote search server.

Install

1. Check product system requirements.

2. Log in to HCL Software Support and get the software.

3. Install prerequisite software installations.
   1. Install a web server
   2. Prepare a database server
   3. Prepare a user registry

4. Install the HCL WebSphere Portal

5. Apply the latest cumulative fix

6. Log in to HCL WebSphere Portal to verify that we have a working portal:
   http://hostname.example.com:10039/wps/portal

   10039 is the default transport port created by DX Application Server. for the environment.

7. Access the Configuration Wizard....
   http://your_server:10200/hcl/wizard

   Log in to the Configuration Wizard with the administrative ID for the configuration wizard profile, cw_profile.

8. Transfer the database:

   1. Select Set Up a Cluster > Database Transfer.

      The Database Transfer configuration option in the Configuration Wizard assigns users and permissions, creates databases, obtains support for database collation, and transfers the database.

   2. Provide information about the environment.

   3. Save the configuration settings.

   4. Choose one of the following options:
      • Click Download Files to run the steps remotely.
      • Click Run All Steps to run the steps locally.

   5. Log in to HCL WebSphere Portal to verify that we have a working portal server.

9. Create your deployment manager:

   1. Select...
      Set Up a Cluster > Create a Deployment Manager

   2. Provide information about the environment.

   3. Save the configuration settings.

   4. Choose one of the following options:
      • Click Download Files to run the steps remotely.
      • Click Run All Steps to run the steps locally.

10. Optional: If we changed the context root during the installation or configuration of HCL WebSphere Portal, then complete the optional next step from the Configuration Wizard to update parameters with the new context path after after completing Create a Deployment Manager configuration option.

11. Log in to HCL WebSphere Portal to verify that we have a working portal server.

12. Create a cluster node:

    1. Select...
       Set Up a Cluster > Create a Cluster

    2. Provide information about the environment.

    3. Save the configuration settings.

    4. Choose one of the following options:
       • Click Download Files to run the steps remotely.
       • Click Run All Steps to run the steps locally.

    5. Log in to HCL WebSphere Portal to verify that we have a working portal server.

13. Enable federated security:

    1. Set Up a Cluster > Enable Federated Security.

       If you set Use Administrator IDs stored in the LDAP user registry to yes, the WebSphere Application Server and HCL WebSphere Portal user IDs and passwords are changed to the LDAP user ID and password. If we do not want to change both user IDs and passwords to match the LDAP user ID and password, set this value to no. After we configure the LDAP user registry, we can manually change the user IDs and passwords.

    2. Provide information about the environment.

    3. Save the configuration settings.

    4. Choose one of the following options:
       • Click Download Files to run the steps remotely.
       • Click Run All Steps to run the steps locally.

    5. Log in to HCL WebSphere Portal to verify that we have a working portal server.

14. Create additional cluster nodes:

    1. Install HCL Digital Portal on the additional node.

       For additional nodes, we only need to install the HCL WebSphere Portal product binary files. Therefore, on the Features screen of the IBM Installation Manager, ensure that Portal Server Profile is not selected.

    2. Set Up a Cluster > Create an Additional Cluster Node.

       If we are setting up a vertical cluster, manual instructions are available for dynamic and static cluster configurations.

    3. Provide information about the environment.

    4. Save the configuration settings.

    5. Choose one of the following options:
       • Click Download Files to run the steps remotely.
       • Click Run All Steps to run the steps locally.

    6. Log in to HCL WebSphere Portal to verify that we have a working portal server.

15. Configure the web server

16. Tune the servers in the environment

17. Configure a remote search service
    1. Use the IBM Installation Manager to install the remote search service
    2. If we use single-sign on, prepare the security for the remote search service.
    3. Configure the security between portal and the remote search server.
    4. Set the search user ID.
    5. Configure the remote search service.
    6. Configure the seedlist servlet.

Next steps

Depending on the choices made during the installation and set up, there are additional tasks to configure the environment. The following options are available to continue configuring the environment:

Configure global settings

Configure portal behavior.

Change the default portal Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)

Complete the context root change on the Configuration for HCL WebSphere Portal: Profile configuration details: Advanced panel during installation.

To change the context root after installation, change the portal URI.

Adapt the attribute configuration to match the LDAP server

Add more attributes via the Virtual Machine Manager.

Configure syndication

Configure syndication settings.

Add vertical cluster members

Add vertical cluster members.

Configure search

Configure search settings.

Update the user registry

Update the user registry to capture preferences.

Parent topic: HCL WebSphere Portal Roadmaps for clusters