[AIX Solaris HP-UX Linux Windows][z/OS]

Configuring external WebSphere application servers

You can create middleware server representations of WebSphere® application servers that are in other cells.

Before you begin

  • If you have a large topology of WebSphere application servers, you can use the Migration Toolkit to create the representations of these servers in the environment.
  • Federate the node that is running the WebSphere application server and create a representation of the server.

About this task

External WebSphere application servers are application servers that reside outside of your Intelligent Management cell. For example, you have two cells: one cell that is running WebSphere Application Server application servers, and another cell that is running Intelligent Management. In this scenario, you can install the node agent on the WebSphere nodes in the other cell, federate these nodes into your Intelligent Management cell, and create representations of your external WebSphere application servers. Using external WebSphere application servers can be useful in a migration scenario, because you can continue to route traffic to servers that are running an older version with the on demand router, while you work on migrating your servers and applications to the latest version. However, external WebSphere application servers are assisted lifecycle servers, and therefore do not receive the full lifecycle management that is provided when you create application servers directly in your Intelligent Management cell.

When you configure the external WebSphere application servers, if you installed WebSphere Application Server in a location other than the default directory, update the WebSphere variables with your installation directory. To perform server operations on your server, configure the server operations for the WebSphere Application Server middleware server representation.

Note: Intelligent Management support for using external WebSphere application servers is stabilized in WebSphere application Server Version 8.5.5 and later. You can use the administrative console or wsadmin scripting to manage these servers

Procedure

  1. Update the WebSphere variables to match the settings on the node that is running the WebSphere Application Server.
    • If you use wsadmin scripting, follow the directions in the topic on modifying variables using wsadmin scripting.
    • To modify the variables in the administrative console, click Environment > WebSphere variables.
    Edit the following variables:
    WAS51_HOME
    Specifies the location of the WebSphere Application Server installation.
    Default values are set at the cell scope level:
    [Windows]c:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer
    [AIX HP-UX Solaris]/opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer

    If the home directory is different on different nodes in your configuration, create the WAS51_HOME variable for a specific node.

    WAS6_HOME
    Specifies the location of the WebSphere Application Server Version 6 installation location.
    Default values are set at the cell scope level:
    [Windows]c:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\profiles\AppServer
    [AIX HP-UX Solaris]opt/IBM/WebSphere/profiles/AppServer

    If the home directory is different on different nodes in your configuration, create the WAS6_HOME variable for a specific node.

    WAS6_PROFILE_NAME
    Specifies the name of the profile in which the external WebSphere Application Server server resides on its physical computer.
  2. Update server operations for the WebSphere Application Server to include the user name and password.
    • If you use wsadmin scripting, follow the directions in the topic on starting the wsadmin client. The startMiddlewareServer command and the stopMiddlewareServer command require a user name and password to run.
    • To update server operations in the administrative console, click Servers > Other middleware servers > External WebSphere Application Server > WebSphere_Application_Server > Server operations. Edit the start and stop server operations to include the user name and password that are required to run these commands.

What to do next

  • To easily configure your remaining external WebSphere application servers, create a server template of your current external WebSphere Application Server.
  • View the log files for your external WebSphere Application Server on the computer that hosts it.
  • Edit configuration files for your external WebSphere Application Server on the computer that hosts it.
  • After you create representations of all the external WebSphere application servers, you can add the representations to a dynamic cluster.