Planning the product installation

Learn about hardware and software requirements, the available WebSphere® Application Server product offerings, and IBM Installation Manager.

About this task

The installation scenarios can help you to understand the capabilities of your WebSphere Application Server product. Knowing what you can do with the product might influence how you install the product and other components.

The installation scenarios use topology diagrams and descriptions to show what components to install for a given topology. The scenarios also have installation steps that link to specific procedures for installing a component, running a command, or using a tool.

Review the scenarios to determine which topology best fits your needs. The diagrams and their accompanying procedures can serve as a roadmap for installing a similar topology.

Procedure

  • To learn about IBM Installation Manager, see Installation Manager overview.

    Installation Manager is a single installation program that can use remote or local software flat-file repositories to install, modify, or update new WebSphere Application Server products. It determines and shows available packages, including products, fix packs, and interim fixes; checks prerequisites and inter dependencies; and installs the selected packages. You also use Installation Manager to easily uninstall the packages that it installed.

    IBM Installation Manager Version 1.8.5 or later is required to install the product.

    [IBM i] On IBM i V7R4, IBM Installation Manager Version 1.8.9.4 or later is required to install the product.

  • Review the hardware and software requirements for your operating system as described in Hardware and software requirements.
  • [AIX Solaris HP-UX Linux Windows] Review the installation scenarios to determine which topology best fits your needs.
    1. Review the installation scenarios for the WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment product, as described in Planning to install WebSphere Application Server.
    2. Review the installation scenarios for the Web Server Plug-ins for WebSphere Application Server as described in the article Selecting a web server topology diagram and roadmap.
    3. Review the installation scenarios Application Client for IBM WebSphere Application Server as described in Planning to install the Application Client for IBM WebSphere Application Server.
  • Optional: Review interoperability and coexistence scenarios to know what is possible with the current version.

    WebSphere Application Server can inter-operate with your other e-business systems, including other versions of WebSphere Application Server. Interoperability provides a communication mechanism for WebSphere Application Server nodes that are at different versions, running on separate machines. Coexistence describes multiple versions or instances running on the same machine at the same time.

    Interoperability support enhances migration scenarios with more configuration options. Interoperating is often more convenient or practical during the migration of a configuration from an earlier WebSphere Application Server version to a later one. Some machines can have the earlier product version and other machines can have the later version. An environment of machines and application components at different software version levels can involve both interoperability and coexistence.

    It is often impractical, or even physically impossible, to migrate all of the machines and applications within an enterprise at the same time. Understanding multiversion interoperability and coexistence is therefore an essential part of a migration between version levels. See the migration documentation for more information.

What to do next

Prepare the operating system for product installation.

For more information, see Preparing the operating system for product installation.