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Roadmap: Production and delivery environment

The production environment can be multiple clusters, a portal farm, or a stand-alone server. This roadmap is based on a cluster topology. In a cluster, the portals share a common configuration, and the load is distributed evenly across all cluster instances.

The Configuration Wizard prompts us to select the cluster type, static or dynamic. By default, the cluster type is static. A static cluster is a group of application servers in a IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment environment that participates in workload management. A dynamic cluster monitors performance and load information and is able to dynamically create and remove cluster members based on the workload. We can add extra nodes to expand the capacity of the dynamic cluster.

Portal before v8.5 required IBM WebSphere Virtual Enterprise to set up a dynamic cluster. In WebSphere Application Server v8.5, the virtual enterprise component is integrated with the application server. Therefore, we do not need to install and configure WebSphere Virtual Enterprise before we set up a dynamic cluster.

Configure the web server plug-in transfering the database.


Topology diagram

The clustered topology diagram below 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, use a remote search server.


Prepare for the installation process

  1. Check requirements
  2. Get the software.


Install prerequisites

Use existing prerequisite software installations. Verify the existing version is supported. If it is not, upgrade to the appropriate version. Otherwise, install a web server, database server, and user registry server. Typically the database and user registry servers are already installed and configured. However, there might be specific configuration steps required to integrate them with the portal server.

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


Install

  1. Install WebSphere Portal


Set up a cluster environment

  1. Access the Configuration Wizard

      http://your_server:10200/ibm/wizard

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

    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 on to verify portal is working server.

  3. Create the deployment manager:

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

    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 on to verify portal is working server.

    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 on to verify portal is working server.

  4. Enable federated security:

    1. Set Up a Cluster > Enable Federated Security.

      If we set Use Administrator IDs stored in the LDAP user registry to yes, the WAS and 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 configuring the LDAP user registry, we can manually change the user IDs and passwords.

      The Enable Federated Security option modifies wimconfig.xml. Make a backup copy of this file before running ConfigEngine tasks.

        WP_PROFILE/config/cells/CellName/wim/config/wimconfig.xml

    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 on to verify portal is working server.

  5. Create extra cluster nodes:

    1. Install WebSphere Portal on the additional node.

      For additional nodes, we need only install the WebSphere Portal product binary files. 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.

      This is for a horizontal cluster. Vertical clusters require manual configuration...

    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 on to verify portal is working server.


Configure the web server


Move the web server plug-in from the WAS to the web server.


Tune the servers in the environment

WebSphere Portal is not tuned for a production environment after installation and deployment. Your database needs tuning for improved performance. We can organize the database now or soon after you finish the configuration. We need to tune and maintain the database on a regular basis.

  1. Run the performance tuning tool to complete an initial tuning of the servers.

  2. Check the tuning guide for more instructions.

    Use the tuning guide for the previous product version when the tuning guide for the current release is unavailable.


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 that you made during the installation and set up, there are additional tasks to configure our environment.

The following options are available to continue configuring the environment:

  1. Configure global settings
  2. Adapt the attribute configuration to match the LDAP server
  3. Configure syndication
  4. Add vertical cluster members
  5. Configure search
  6. Update the user registry


Parent Roadmaps for clusters