Portal Express, Version 6.0
Operating systems: i5/OS, Linux, Windows
Plan considerations
Considerations for building a portal environment
When outside of a cluster, each standalone server requires a connection to its own database.
Developers should have access to their own portal environment for unit testing and to minimize the extent that development portals are shared across developers to minimize contention over resources.
The integration and staging environment should mimic the intended production environment, including the platform, database, and operating system levels. The staging environment should imitate the type of traffic and load that are expected against the production environment. Promotion of applications from development to integration to staging and from staging to production needs to be tightly managed for quality assurance and version control.
The production environment should be designed for redundancy and failover and workload distribution.
WebSphere Application Server
WebSphere Portal Express requires WebSphere Application Server.
For Windows and Linux, if you have an existing version of WebSphere Application Server installed the WebSphere Portal Express installation program detects and verifies the installed version of WebSphere Application Server.
Ensure that the installed WebSphere Application Server is at the supported level before installing.
If WebSphere Application Server is not installed the WebSphere Portal Express installation program will install the required level of WebSphere Application Server for you.
Web Server
If you have an existing Web server that you want to use with WebSphere Application Server, ensure that the existing version is at the supported level.
The installation program does not detect a Web server during installation, so ensure that the existing version is at the supported level.
A Web server is not required by WebSphere Portal Express.
However, an external Web server is recommended if you intend to support a large number of users or take advantage of workload management.
Database
The installation program automatically uses IBM DB2 Universal Database Express Edition on Windows and Linux, and IBM DB2® for i5/OS® to set up a default database.
There are other supported databases.
Security
For authentication can use...
- LDAP directory
- LDAP directory plus Lookaside database
- Database user registry
- Customer-supplied custom user registry
You cannot use Cloudscape as a custom user registry or a database user registry for authentication. You must use other supported database software, such as, but not limited to, IBM DB2 Universal Database Enterprise Server Edition.
If you plan to use external manager security software, use an LDAP server or an LDAP plus Lookaside database for authentication.
Lotus Domino Integration
Planning for integrating the portal site with Lotus Domino and the Extended Products (Lotus Sametime and Lotus QuickPlace) varies depending on whether your organization already uses Lotus Domino, already has a portal installation, or includes both.
Clustering
Clustering is the concept of distributing the workload of a server across multiple machines.
The production environment should use vertical clustering to take full advantage of the resources of a multiprocessor system. In addition, it should make use of horizontal cloning to allow for upward scalability.
To maximize security, horizontal clones should reside in different geographic locations to guard against natural disaster or site outages.
For redundancy , failover, and simpler maintenance, WebSphere Portal Express may be installed in several clusters, or lines of production, sharing some common data through the database
Other
- Administrator user ID and password for portal
-
Your portal administrator user ID and password are used to log in to WebSphere Portal Express to perform administrative tasks and it is not the same user ID that is used to access the machine where you installed WebSphere Portal Express.
For security reasons, it is strongly recommended that you change these values soon after you have installed WebSphere Portal Express and before you make it available to users.
- Firewall software
-
Before you start the installation program, disable any firewall products that are running on the machine where the portal will be installed. If the installation program detects a firewall, a warning message displays.
- Path name length
- There is a known limitation with many Windows operating systems that limits path names to a maximum length of 259 characters. This can be a potential problem due to the depth of the WebSphere Application Server directory structure, particularly when deploying applications or performing migration.
During installation and configuration, values are added temporarily to the Path, which might result in one of the following errors during configuration:
These messages might also appear in the wpinstalllog.txt file.
- The input line is too long.
- The syntax of the command is incorrect.
- The filename is too long.
To avoid problems related to excessively long paths names, consider the following recommendations when installing:
- Use a short installation path. For example, use C:\WebSphere instead of C:\Program Files\IBM\Websphere.
- Specify short cell and node names – do not use names longer than 5 characters.
For example, you might use scell instead of stonemillNode01cell.
- The name of the WAR files must be less than approximately 21 characters.
The installation program attempts to truncate or rename long names before it deploys the WAR file into the application server; however, it cannot always circumvent the path name to exceed the limit. To correct this error, modify the file name to less than 21 characters.
Planning for backup and recovery
As with any production-critical programs, you should plan for backup and recovery in the event of a system crash. As it becomes available, additional information about backup and recovery will be posted on the Web.
For information on backing up and recovering a Document Manager library, see Staging a document library to production.
Software that can be installed on the portal machine
The following table lists software that you can use with WebSphere Portal Express and WebSphere Portal Express for i5/OS.
Use this table to understand what software you can install on the machine where you have installed WebSphere Portal Express.
Information about limitations and recommended configurations is provided.
Some software that is mentioned in the following table might not be shipped with your edition of WebSphere Portal Express.
Refer to Supported hardware and software for WebSphere Portal Express Version 6.0 for the latest fix levels required for each of the software products listed in the following table.
Here are IBM i5/OS commands you can issue to determine if your System i5 system's software is at the recommended level:
GO SOFTWARE display menu for installed programs GO LICPGM display all the installed licensed programs wrkptfgrp display and allow you to work with all installed PTF groups dspptf display PTF status; for example, temporarily or permanently applied
WebSphere Portal Express
| Software | Required, optional, or not recommended on the portal machine? | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| IBM WebSphere Application Server + WebSphere Process Server Version 6.0.2
WebSphere Portal Express does not support WebSphere Process Server on i5/OS. There are separate installation images for Base and Network Deployment within the WebSphere Portal Express installation media.
| Required. WebSphere Application Server must be installed and updated before installing WebSphere Portal Express on i5/OS. WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere Portal Express must be installed on the same machine, regardless of platform.
Optional For non-i5/OS platforms, WebSphere Process Server provides a business process integration feature
| Choose one:
|
| Java Developer Kit 5.0 | Required: Necessary for Java development on i5/OS | 5722JV1 (Option 7) |
| Java Developer Kit 1.4 | Required: Necessary for Java development on i5/OS.
Java Developer Kit 1.4 for i5/OS V5R3 and V5R4 is included in the i5/OS installation media. | 5722JV1 (*BASE and Option 6)The following program temporary fixes are required to be installed on i5/OS :
|
| Host servers | Required: Required for remote installation of WebSphere Portal Express on i5/OS. | 5733SS1 (Option 12) |
| QShell Interpreter | Required: Required to use scripts in WebSphere Application Server, prior to local installation of WebSphere Portal Express on i5/OS. | 5722SS1 (Option 30) |
| Application environment tools | Required: Required before configuring WebSphere Portal Express on i5/OS.
Necessary for System i5, option 43 provides an HTML rendering server (X virtual frame buffer for X server) to aid in document rendering
|
These options are available on the i5/OS product CD. |
| HTTP Web server | Optional for non-i5/OS systems. You can install the Web server on the portal machine or on a separate machine.
Required for i5/OS: Not needed for installation, but required to support requests for servlets and JSP resources that you want to be handled by an HTTP server residing natively on System i5. If you plan to deploy only enterprise beans, a Web server is not needed.
| 5722DG1 IBM HTTP Server for i5/OS V5R3 or V5R4. The following versions support OS/400:
To reduce points of failure and to offload processing, consider centralizing the Web server. The WebSphere Application Server plug-in that is installed on the Web server can take care of load balancing between remote WebSphere Application Server profiles in a cluster.
|
| TCP/IP Utilities | Required: Required if you plan to use TCP/IP as your network protocol. | 5722TC1 (option *BASE) |
| Database server | Required.
WebSphere Portal Express automatically uses IBM DB2 Universal Database Express Edition on Windows and Linux, and IBM DB2 for i5/OS.
| |
| Database client |
Required for DB2 . Client software is required for this database.
Optional for other database servers. The database client software can be used in place of a .zip or .jar file as long as the versions are compatible.
| Use a remote database server to improve performance and security, and install the appropriate database client software on the portal machine. |
| Directory (LDAP) server | Optional. You can install the directory server on the portal machine or on a separate (remote) machine. | Use a remote directory server to improve performance and security, and to reduce the impact of server failure. |
| Directory (LDAP) client | Optional. If you use a remote directory server, client software for the directory server might be required on the portal machine. | Install the directory client if the remote directory server requires it. |
IBM Lotus® Domino® and Extended Products:
| Optional. You can install any of the Domino and Extended Products on the WebSphere Portal Express machine or on a separate machine. | Install Lotus Domino, Lotus Sametime, and Lotus QuickPlace on separate machines to improve performance and to reduce the impact of server failure.
See Related tasks for a roadmap to Lotus Domino Integration and to planning considerations specific to a collaborative portal and portlets, including more information on performance. A collaborative portal is one that includes any of the Domino and Extended Products, which support the Domino and Extended Products Portlets and the Common PIM portlets.
|
| External security manager | Not recommended. | Install the external security manager software, such as IBM Tivoli® Access Manager for e-business, on a different machine. |
| Digital Certificate Manager | Optional with i5/OS: Not required for installation, but required if you plan to use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. | 5722SS1 (Option 34) Digital Certificate Manager (Refer to WebSphere Application Server, using SSL) |
| Cryptographic Access Provider | Optional with i5/OS V5R3: Not required for installation, but required if you plan to use SSL.
Provided with i5/OS V5R4
| 5722AC2 or 5722AC3 Crypto (Refer to WebSphere Application Server) |
| Query Manager and SQL development kits | Optional: Can be helpful in developing client applications. | DB2 Query Manager and SQL Development Kit |
- Special characters in user IDs and passwords
This topic describes the special characters that are allowed in user IDs or passwords and rules for using them.
- Staging the portal to production
Deploying IBM WebSphere Portal Express in your business requires careful planning, a significant commitment of time, and involves many phases of deployment and system topologies. This topic discusses common phases of deployment.
Parent topic:
Planning for deploymentRelated tasks
Sharing database domains between clusters Information roadmap: Domino Integration