Federate nodes into a cell - WAS 8 (Beta)

The federation process was not too hard to follow, but still I made three mistakes.

1) I provided the wrong OS password for the Dmgr. It took a while to figure this out. After providing the right password, the process started as a service.
2) I did not start the node agent after creating the profile (when the system did not start the node agent). I used "startNode" program to start the node agent and then, the node agent, node, and the server all started. The program is in the bin directory of the application server. For example, c:/program files (x86)/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/AppSrv03/bin
3) I did not check the "Include applications" radio button when I want to an app server keep the apps. The node agent should be started automatically. Chances are the initiation process times out due to resource challenges.

Here is the federation process, assuming that you have already created the application server(s) to federate into the cell that has been created (When you created a cell, a deployment manager and an application server are created as well by default. You will need to start the node agent for the application by invoking startNode program. The profile creation process did not start the node agent). Before you start, make sure that the application servers that you want to federate are running.

1. Launching Dmgr admin console
2. System administration -> Node -> Add node -> Managed node
3. Provide host name, the SOAP port number of the application server to federate, and the user names and passwords for the application serrver and Dmgr
4) Check "Include applications" unless you do not want to bring over the applications
5) Provide OS level user name and password to run the node agent as a serivce
6) Click on OK button and the federation may take a while
7) Start the node agent by issuing command "startNode" when the current directory is the bin directory of the application server
8) Verify the federation by doing the following

a. look at the addNode log file in the logs directory of the application server
b. verify by using Dmgr admin console to see if the node agent has been started, if yes, start the application server
c. use the browser to browse using the HTTP port of the application server and launch the default appliations to verify the federation