IBM Installation Manager

All Rational® products at Version 8.0 or later are installed by IBM Installation Manager, which also controls management, updates, licensing, and uninstallation. The IBM Integration Toolkit includes some Rational product components, and therefore includes and uses Installation Manager.

Installation Manager is included with the IBM Integration Toolkit and with the other products in this list. When you first install the IBM Integration Toolkit (or another listed product), Installation Manager installs itself into a directory that you specify, and then drives the installation of the IBM Integration Toolkit (or other listed product). If you install another product, Installation Manager detects that it is already installed, and drives only the installation of that product.

The IBM Integration Toolkit shares certain resources with these other products, if installed; for example, Eclipse features and plug-ins. All common resources that are used by the installed products must be installed into a single directory, which is known as the shared resources directory. You are asked to specify the location of this directory when you first install the IBM Integration Toolkit or another Rational product.

If you install another product, Installation Manager finds the shared resources directory and uses its content during the installation process; you cannot change the location of this directory.

The shared resources directory must be on a drive that is local to this computer; you cannot specify a mapped or remote drive. The drive that you specify for the shared resources directory must be of sufficient size to handle all your expected installations; you cannot change or expand this directory after installation. When you specify the directory during a first installation, specify a new directory to ensure that it does not contain any files that might cause conflicts.

Memory requirements for the IBM Integration Toolkit are listed in Memory and disk space requirements. If you plan to install additional Rational products, allow 2 GB for each additional product.

You must also allocate space in another directory in which you can manage the workspace resources that you create for the installed Rational products.

Package groups

When you install the IBM Integration Toolkit, you are also asked to specify a package group. Products that you install into a single package group share Eclipse features and plug-ins, and these resources are loaded and viewable in a single Eclipse instance. You can choose whether to install a product in a package group with other products, or to install IBM Integration Toolkit in a new package group.

Each package group is isolated from products in other package groups, although all package groups access a single shared resources directory. You are asked to specify the location for the package group directory; you must specify a new directory for each new package group. All product-specific files are installed into this directory.

You might choose to use separate package groups to install different combinations of the IBM Integration Toolkit and other Rational products, so that users can gain access to tailored Eclipse instances. When you install the first product, the first package group is created with the name IBM Integration Toolkit. This name is fixed; you cannot change it.

If you choose to install another product into a new package group, another group is created with the name IBM Software Development Platform_1. Each new package group name follows this same naming pattern with the numeric suffix incremented by one.

For example, you might have defined the following package groups:

• IBM Integration Toolkit into which you have installed the IBM Integration Toolkit and RAD.
• IBM Integration Toolkit_1 into which you have installed the IBM Integration Toolkit and RSA.
• IBM Integration Toolkit_2 into which you have installed WID and RSA.

When you start an Eclipse session in one of these package groups, you can access only those resources that are associated with the products installed in that group.

If you install later versions of any of the products in a different package group, the updates are available only in that group. The shared resources directory is also updated with later versions of shared files, which are maintained separately from the original versions and are used only for the upgraded products.

Each Rational product specifies which versions of plug-ins and features it requires, if appropriate. Installation Manager ensures the integrity of these requirements in each package group. If the product that you are currently installing breaks this integrity, Installation Manager prevents the installation into that package group.

Installation Manager also controls uninstallation of the IBM Integration Toolkit and the other products previously listed; you cannot uninstall Installation Manager until all listed products in all package groups have been removed.

Installation Manager is not required for any of the Integration Bus component prerequisite products, such as WebSphere MQ.