How to deploy the sample WebSphere App PlantsByWebSphere for ITCAM testing.

Answer

In version WAS 8.x and higher, you can install the PlantsByWebSphere sample app during the WebSphere install. However, you will need to deploy it to get it to work successfully before you can run some traffic/load on it.

Here are the steps to do the deployment to get it to work.

1. During the install of the WAS 8.x software, install the PlantsByWebSphere (and other) sample apps. It will be listed like this during the Install phase.

2. After you have installed the Sample apps, verify the pbw-db.jar file is in this dir:



3. Make a new databases dir under ../derby/* and then copy the pbw-db.jar file to it:



4. You will then extract the pbw-db.jar file in the databases dir. Here I am using the unzip utility to unzip the jar file. You can any other utility if you don't have unzip.



5. After extraction, it'll look like this, you'll see a PLANTSDB sub-directory:



6. Now go to the target dir and verify the pbw-ear.ear file exists in the target dir. You will need to deploy this ear file using the Admin console in the steps listed below.



7. Now that the pbw-ear.ear file exists, you can bring up the Admin Console and deploy it as follows:











Choose defaults here.. press Next:















Restart the pbw-ear application that you just deployed now. Select it and press Start.





Now bring up your browser and try out the Application as follows:
http://<your-server>:9080/PlantsByWebsphere, it should look like this:




Congratulations! Now you have successfully installed, deployed, and started the PlantsByWebSphere application on your WAS server. You can now run transactions on the server, and observer data in your ITCAM / APM console and observe data. (Note that if you're using WAS v9, you will need to copy the file into the %WAS_HOME%\derby\databases\PlantsDB\tmp\ sub-dir.)