For up-to-date product documentation, see the IBM MobileFirst Foundation Developer Center.
Run IBM Installation Manager
IBM® Installation Manager installs the IBM MobileFirst™ Platform Server files and tools on your computer.
You run Installation Manager to install the binary files of MobileFirst Server and the tools to deploy the MobileFirst Server applications to an application server on your computer. The files and tools that are installed by the installer are described in Distribution structure of MobileFirst Server.
We need IBM Installation Manager V1.8.4 or later to run the MobileFirst Server installer. We can run it either in graphical mode or in command line mode.
Two main options are proposed during the installation process:
- Activation of token licensing
- Installation and deployment of IBM MobileFirst Platform Application Center
- Token licensing
Token licensing is one of the two licensing methods supported by MobileFirst Server. You must determine whether you need to activate token licensing or not. If you do not have a contract that defines the use of token licensing with the Rational® License Key Server, do not activate token licensing. If you activate token licensing, we must configure MobileFirst Server for token licensing. For more information, see token licensing for MobileFirst Server, we must install the Rational Common Licensing library and configure your application server to connect MobileFirst Server to the Rational License Key Server.
- IBM MobileFirst Platform Application Center
Application Center is a component of IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation. With Application Center, we can share mobile applications that are under development within your organization in a single repository of mobile applications.
If you choose to install Application Center with Installation Manager, we must provide the database and the application server parameters so that Installation Manager configures the databases and deploys Application Center to the application server. If you choose not to install Application Center with Installation Manager, Installation Manager saves the WAR file and the resources of Application Center to your disk. It does not set up the databases nor deploys Application Center WAR file to our application server. We can do this later by using Ant tasks or manually. This option to install Application Center is a convenient way to discover Application Center because you are guided during the installation process by the graphical Install wizard.
However, for production installation, use Ant tasks to install Application Center. The installation with Ant tasks enables you to decouple the updates to MobileFirst Server from the updates to Application Center.
- Advantage of installing Application Center with Installation Manager.
- A guided graphical wizard assists you through the installation and deployment process.
- Disadvantages of installing Application Center with Installation Manager.
- If Installation Manager is run with the root user on UNIX or Linux, it might create files that are owned by root in the directory of the application server where Application Center is deployed. As a result, we must run the application server as root.
- You have no access to the database scripts and cannot provide them to our database administrator to create the tables before you run the installation procedure. Installation Manager creates the database tables for you with default settings.
- Each time when you upgrade the product, for example to install an interim fix, Application Center is upgraded first. The upgrade of Application Center includes operations on the database and the application server. If the upgrade of Application Center fails, it prevents Installation Manager from completing the upgrade, and prevents you from upgrading other MobileFirst Server components. For production installation, do not deploy Application Center with Installation Manager. Install Application Center separately with Ant tasks after Installation Manager installsMobileFirst Server. For more information about Application Center, see Install and configure the Application Center.
Important: The MobileFirst Server installer installs only the MobileFirst Server binary files and tools on your disk. It does not deploy the MobileFirst Server applications to our application server. After you run the installation with Installation Manager, we must set up the databases and deploy the MobileFirst Server applications to our application server. For more information, see:
Similarly, when you run Installation Manager to update an existing installation, it updates only the files on your disk. We need to perform more actions to update the applications that are deployed to our application servers. To apply an interim fix or fix pack, see:
- Apply a fix pack or an interim fix with the Server Configuration Tool
- Apply a fix pack by using the Ant files
- Administrator versus user mode
- Install by using IBM Installation Manager Install wizard
- Install by running IBM Installation Manager in command line
- Install by using XML response files (silent installation)
- Distribution structure of MobileFirst Server
Parent topic: Install MobileFirst Server for a production environment
Related tasks: