Creating and maintaining multiple profiles on Windows

The multiple profile feature allows you to install IBM® WebSphere® Portal once and then create multiple profile instances based on the original installation. You can create additional profiles immediately after installation if you want each profile instance to use the unmodified version of the WebSphere Portal configuration or you can create the additional profiles after you have installed and configured WebSphere Portal to create a customized environment that you want to use as the basis for additional profiles. You can also augment an existing IBM WebSphere Application Server default profile to add WebSphere Portal to that existing profile.

About this task

Complete the following tasks to create and maintain additional WebSphere Portal profiles:
  • Preparing the system for multiple profile support on Windows
    IBM WebSphere Portal provides several profile templates that you can use to create a new WebSphere Portal profile or to augment an existing profile with WebSphere Portal. To use these profile templates, you must first run the enable-profiles task to configure the profile templates, register these templates with IBM WebSphere Application Server, and save the current WebSphere Portal baseline configuration. The baseline configuration is provided in the form of a configuration archive (CAR) that is created by exporting the contents of an existing profile. You can create the CAR any time, such as immediately after the initial installation or after the original portal is fully configured with security, database, basic application deployment, and server tuning.
  • Creating or augmenting profiles on Windows
    You can create new profiles or augment existing IBM WebSphere Application Server default profiles or Deployment Manager profiles with IBM WebSphere Portal. You can use the Profile Management Tool (PMT), if supported, to enter all required parameters on a graphical user interface (GUI). The PMT is the preferred method for beginners because it uses automatically created default values. You can also use the manageProfiles command to enter all required parameters on a command line. This method allows you to automate the process. If you have an existing WebSphere Application Server default profile, you must use the manageProfiles command. The PMT interface is not supported for augmentation in this scenario.
  • Windows: Running configuration tasks in a multiple profile environment
    Each portal profile maintains its own independent configuration. Therefore, IBM WebSphere Portal configuration tasks are executed against only one profile with separate property files maintained in each profile. As with a single-profile system, navigate to the ConfigEngine directory within the required profile to execute the configuration task per that tasks's instructions.
  • Maintaining multiple profiles on Windows
    If you created additional IBM WebSphere Portal profiles or augmented existing default profiles with WebSphere Portal, the profiles now share the product installed files (binary files); therefore, any updates must be coordinated with the users of the various profiles because these updates can affect the run time behavior of each profile. You must stop all servers across all profiles sharing the same set of binary files while the updates are occurring. Similarly, if the product binary files are shared across several systems supporting their own portal profiles, all IBM WebSphere Portal instances across these servers should be stopped during the update process. It is also probable that updates to each profile will be needed, especially in the case of product maintenance application. Updates to the profiles might require that application server instances be restarted in those profiles. In this case, user traffic can be prevented to these server instances during the maintenance window by temporarily removing the target servers from any web servers or load balancers.
  • Updating the configuration archive on Windows
    After customizing your IBM WebSphere Portal environment or installing an iFix that requires a configuration change to your WebSphere Portal environment, run the replace-profiles task. The readme file for the iFix must explicitly mention that configuration changes are introduced with the iFix. The replace-profiles task does not affect your existing profiles. It is used when creating new profiles. You must manually apply your changes to each existing profile.
  • Deleting a profile on Windows
    If your business needs change, you can delete a profile from the profiles that you created.
  • Parent topic: Supporting multiple profiles
    • Related concepts:
  • Multiple profile support
    • Related tasks:
  • Installing WebSphere Portal on Windows on the primary node
  • Installing WebSphere Portal on Windows for the horizontal cluster nodes