IBM Tivoli Monitoring > Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2 > Installation Guides > Installation Guide > Pre-deployment phase > Understanding Tivoli Monitoring and your network > Determine where to place the Tivoli Monitoring components
IBM Tivoli Monitoring, Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2
Tivoli Enterprise Portal client
The portal client a Java-based user interface that connects to the portal server to view all monitoring data collections. The portal client is the user interaction component of the presentation layer.
The portal client brings all of these views together in a single window so you can see when any component is not working as expected. The client offers three modes of operation, that all work with Java:
- Browser client
- Desktop client
- Java Web Start client
See Table 1 for more information.
The browser client is automatically installed with the Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server (on the Web server that is integrated with the portal server). The desktop client is supported on Windows and Linux operating systems. You can install the desktop client from the IBM Tivoli Monitoring installation media or you can use IBM Web Start for Java to download the desktop client from the Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server. See Supported browser versions.
Use browser mode or Web Start clients allow you to perform maintenance updates in a single location. If the desktop client is installed from installation media, maintenance must be installed on each computer. If Web Start for Java is used to download and run the desktop client, you gain the performance advantage of the desktop client along with the convenience of centralized administration from the server. Additional performance gains can be made by modifying the Java heap settings. Unless you want a very secure environment where there are no downloads, use IBM Web Start for Java for obtaining the desktop client.
To use Java Web Start to download the desktop client from the Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server, either Java, version 6.0 or 7.0 (also referred to as JRE version 1.6 or 1.7) must be installed on the system to which you are downloading the client. You can use either the IBM Runtime Environment for Java and the Oracle Java Runtime Environment. The IBM Runtime Environment for Java can be downloaded from the Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server to the system where you are downloading the client. See Use Web Start to download and run the desktop client.
Many customers install the desktop client on Citrix for the following reasons. Citrix allows for better GUI performance for users at remote locations. In addition, some users do not allow the Tivoli Enterprise Portal client's prerequisite Java version to be installed on desktop computers. By using Citrix, users do not have to install Java on the user's desktop systems.
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Determine where to place the Tivoli Monitoring components