Configure developer mode on Windows

The developer mode allows us to improve start up performance and to configure IBM WebSphere Portal for development. This file explains how to configure and unconfigure the development mode option. Developer mode is for a dev environment only and should not be used in a production environment.
Install WebSphere Portal with the Base installation option.

This task modifies the following components:

JVM

The JVM will be switched to development mode and the initial heap size will be set to the maximum allowable heap size to reduce the amount of garbage collection during start up.

Portlets

Portlets and Web Applications will be activated on first access and not at the start up. Since some of the portlets and applications are required at start up, a white list, which contains the list of applications, will hold the applications still started at start up.

To add applications to the white list, modify...

WP_PROFILE/PortalServer/config/StartupPerformance/wp.base_TargetMapExclList.properties

Add a line such as App_name, where App_name is the name of the application. Log on to the WAS admin console and go to...

Applications | Application Types | WebSphere enterprise applications

...to get a list of available applications.

To develop portals and portlets...

cd WP_PROFILE\ConfigEngine
ConfigEngine.bat enable-develop-mode-startup-performance -DWasPassword=foo

Stop and restart the WebSphere_Portal server to propagate the change.

To revert back to a production server.

cd WP_PROFILE\ConfigEngine
ConfigEngine.bat disable-develop-mode-startup-performance -DWasPassword=foo

Then stop and restart the WebSphere_Portal server to propagate the change.

We can run the disable-develop-mode-startup-performance task when we are done developing the portal and portlets, if the development settings are not adequate for a special development situation, or if a problem found on the production server cannot be re-created on the development server.

Parent: Change to developer mode
Related:
Windows stand-alone: Prepare a remote Web server