Chapter 2. Planning 41
2.3 Management components
Access Manager for e-business provides three management tools that can be
used for the administration of your Access Manager system. Those tools are:
The
pdadmin utility, which provides a command line interface (CLI) for
performing administrative functions such as adding users or groups. It is a
C-based application that is installed as part of the Access Manager run time
environment (PDRTE) client component.
The
Web Portal Manager (WPM), which provides a browser-based capability
for performing most of the same functions provided by the pdadmin utility.
The previous two utilities are built using the Tivoli Access Manager
administration API, which enables the CLI and WPM interfaces for
program-initiated administrative functions and queries. The administration API
may also be used by custom applications to perform various Access Manager
administrative functions.
2.3.1 Web Portal Manager
The Access Manager Web Portal Manager provides a browser-based graphical
user interface (GUI) for Access Manager administration.
A key advantage of the Web Portal Manager over the pdadmin command line
utility is the fact that it is a browser-based application that can be accessed
without installing any Access Manager-specific client components on the
administrator’s local machine or requiring special network configuration to permit
remote administrator access. In fact, the authorization capabilities of WebSEAL
can be used to control access to the Web Portal Manager. This means greater
flexibility for administrators’ locations with respect to the physical systems they
are managing.
Administrative functionality
The Web Portal Manager was designed to be an alternative to the pdadmin
command line interface (CLI) for many administrative functions. However, not all
pdadmin functions are supported (such as the retrieval of server statistics) and
the command line interface will still be required in certain cases. In other cases,
such as exporting Access Manager authorization data, Web Portal Manager is
required. Web Portal Manager also offers some key functional benefits over
pdadmin, such as cloning and cut/paste functionality.
Migration of data using WPM
Web Portal Manager allows for the migration of data from one Access Manager
environment to another. Data is exported from the master authorization database