A New WebSphere Student Study Notes

I have been working with a new student of WebSphere technology and here are the study notes of a meeting that we had this morning.

Methodology:

• First try to understand the technical architecture of WebSphere Application Server and the design intentions 
• The student uses three technical reference
•  IBM WebSphere training manual - the Student Notes - for WAS 8.5  - he thinks the IBM WebSphere training manual is compact and helpful
• WebSphere Red Books - the administration guide for V7 and the admin guide for V8 -  
• WebSphere Application Server Administration Using Jython
• I like the student's approach of working through the training manual systematically and using the red books as reference
• The student uses google, of course

The student has problems creating profiles after installing V7 and V8.5. The solution is to use a different Linux based computer. 


The student has built a Ubuntu based machine, has gone through installation and installation verification, and starts to build basic knowledge and skills such as WAS topology but I feel this link would help with better understanding of Cell, Notes, Clusters, etc.

We had a good discussion on the use of deployment manager, standalone servers, administrative agent, and job manager.

We talked about scripting, the use of alias to shorten length commands in improve efficiency and reducing errors. 

We also had a good discussion on the need for a good environment to do QA after configuration change and initial server build and noted the wide difference in QA practice across the industry.

We talked about being clear and concise in answering interview questions even for complex topic such as JVM heap management.

I advised the student to focus on below areas of skills: 

• MDB and messaging
• Web security, for example, SSL
• Application deployment  

We will meet next week to go over the new Linux environment and  using Eclipse IDE to build ears for practising application deployment.

IBM PureApplication Systems - Patterns

According to reliable IBM source, the application pattern and system pattern will merge in the next release of IBM PureApplication Systems.

IBM PureApplication Systems - Training and Certification

There are three technical courses.

• System overview
• Patten deployment and development
• System management

These courses lead to a system administration certification.

IBM PureApplication Systems - More Thoughts

I have been studying IBM PureApplication Systems and here are more notes.

·         Pattern seems to be the key

o   Application pattern

o   System pattern

o   Custom pattern

o   Who does what

§  New position

§  New alignment

·         All system technologies come from one vendor - support for all products come from one vendor

o   HW

o   System SW

o   Application SW

o   Support

§  from one IBM team

§  for all products – IBM or non-IBM

·         Build-in license management

o   Charge back might be easier

o   License clarity and less labor intensive

·         New role

o   Pure System Administrator

o   Reduce amount of the traditional MW work

o   More challenging MW support work due to expanded skills needed

WAS 8.5 - create profile

Launched cwt.sh and tried to create an application profile.

The first effort failed because I had an old WAS 8.0 installation that I did not clean up. I did the clean up and started again.

The second try failed too at importConfigArchiev. Tried to reset WAS_ROOT variable, but it did not help.

I tried the third time after giving below commands. This is to make WAS 8.5 profile management run on Ubuntu 12. Now it is working.

sudo unlink /bin/sh
sudo ln -s /bin/bash /bin/sh 

I have created

• Two application server profiles
• One cell profile

WAS 8.5 - Trial installation

it is time to work on WAS 8.5. I am installing a trial version of WAS 8.5.5.

1. Create an IBM ID and password
2. Go the IBM free download site
3. Download readme.txt and the package for Linux
4. From the terminal prompt, I unzipped the package downloaded 
5. Then, I tried below
1. sudo ./install 
2. I got an error message "install.xml file not found"
3. I verified the install.xml file was in the current directory
4. I verified the install.xml file the correct access set up
5. I searched for similar experience and somebody recommended below
6. ./userinst and it worked -
7. Then it was more of clicking through the IM
6. New notes: today (5-31-14) I did try below and it worked
1. sudo ./install  
2. Then, of course, I consistently use sudo to fire off commands

IBM PureApplication System - Is this the paradigm shift that triggers off a worldwide IT infrastructure engineering revolution?

I have to confess that for a couple of years, I felt that JEE technology was maturing and the pace of changes for WAS slowed down. Of course, there has been mobile computing and worklight, but I was more concerned with the core IT infrastructure technology, especially WebSphere Application Server. However, IBM PureApplication System caught my attention and got me excited. I started to ask myself: "Will IBM PureApplication System start a fundamental paradigm shift? Will IBM PureApplication System trigger off a powerful IT infrastructure revolution. Before we can attempt the answer, let's have a look at what PureApplication does to WebSphere engineering processes.

• Most if not all time consuming pre-installation tasks will disappear
• Provisioning and the first application deployment take hours rather than days if not weeks
• IT labour costs will be substantially reduced when everything starts to run well
• Self-service is finally possible and well supported
• It accommodates main visualization technologies, various MW products, and operating systems
• Patterns help with design and build consistency

The skills level for the MW increases in the areas of

• visualization
• automation of ongoing deployment
• automation of ongoing configuration
• troubleshooting in a more complex MW environment - other than the traditional application server software - now you have VMWare and PureApplication system software to work on, among others