Administering stand-alone nodes using the administrative agent

You can configure an administrative agent, view or change stand-alone application server nodes registered to the administrative agent, and view or change job manager configurations for a registered node. An administrative agent provides a single interface to administer application servers in, development, unit test, or server farm environments, for example.

Before you begin

Install the WebSphere® Application Server product.

About this task

The administrative agent provides a single interface to administer multiple unfederated (stand-alone) application server nodes in, for example, development, unit test, or server farm environments. By using a single interface to administer your application servers, you reduce the overhead of running administrative services in every application server.

You can use the administrative console of the administrative agent to configure the administrative agent, view and change properties for nodes registered to the administrative agent, register and unregister application server nodes with job managers, and view and change job manager configurations for a registered node. A job manager allows you to asynchronously submit and administer jobs for a node registered to the administrative agent when the node is also registered to the job manager.

• Set up the administrative agent environment.

  Create an administrative agent profile and one or more stand-alone application server profiles, called nodes, on the same computer and then register the node profiles with the administrative agent.

• Start and stop the administrative agent as needed.

  The administrative agent must be running to check for jobs for its registered stand-alone application server nodes.

• View and change properties for the administrative agent.
  1. Click System Administration > Administrative agent from the navigation of the administrative agent administrative console.
     • Optionally view the administrative agent properties on the Configuration tab and the Runtime tab.
     • Optionally select Start components as needed on the Configuration tab. Click Apply, and then click OK.

       Selecting the setting allows administrative agent components to start dynamically as needed for applications.

• View and change properties for a node registered to the administrative agent.
  1. Click System Administration > Administrative agent > Nodes.
     • You can view the nodes registered to the administrative agent.
     • Optionally click Register with Job manager to register an application server node with a job manager.
     • Optionally click Unregister from a Job Manager to unregister an application server node from a job manager.
  2. Click System Administration > Administrative agent > Nodes > node_name.
     • Optionally select Poll jobs from job manager to have the administrative agent retrieve jobs from the job manager for this node.
     • To change other properties for the node, click the links under Additional Properties.
• View and change job manager configurations for a registered node.
  1. Click System Administration > Administrative agent > Nodes > node_name > Job managers to view the job managers to which the node is registered.
  2. Click System Administration > Administrative agent > Nodes > node_name > Job managers > job_manager_UUID to change job manager-related properties for the registered node.
     • Optionally change the polling interval by entering an integer value.

       The administrative agent uses the polling interval to check for jobs from the job manager for this registered node.

     • Optionally change the web address of the job manager that the administrative agent polls for this registered node.
• Unregister a stand-alone application server node from the administrative agent.

  Unregister nodes if you no longer need the node in the administrative agent environment or if you intend to delete the stand-alone application server node profile. Run the deregisterNode command to unregister a node.

Results

Depending on the tasks that you completed, you might have configured the administrative agent, registered and unregistered application server nodes with job managers, viewed or changed properties for a node registered to the administrative agent, or viewed and changed the job manager configuration for a registered node.

What to do next

You can continue to administer registered nodes from the administrative agent. You can further configure the administrative agent using the links on the configuration tab of the administrative agent panel. You can register more nodes with the administrative agent using the registerNode command. You can unregister nodes from the administrative agent using the deregisterNode command.

You can register and unregister nodes with a job manager.

If you plan to change the system clock, stop all the application servers, the node agent servers, the deployment manager server, the administrative agent server, the job manager server, and the location service daemon first. After you stop the servers and location service daemon, change the system clock, and then restart the servers and location service daemon. If you change the system clock on one system, you must ensure the clocks on all systems that communicate with each other and have WebSphere Application Server installed are synchronized. Otherwise, you might experience errors, such as security tokens no longer being valid.