WebSphere Portal V5.0 Production Deployment and Operations Guide

WebSphere Portal V5.0 Production Deployment and Operations Guide

by Rufus Credle, Jerry Dancy, David Eyerman, Simon Fredrickson, Stefan Liesche, Marcos Lohmann, Carlos Santos
Released February 2005
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: None

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Book description

This IBM Redbooks publication contains best practices for deployment and operational support of WebSphere Portal V5 in a production environment. It addresses the questions on how to initially deploy WebSphere Portal. After you have deployed WebSphere Portal, you can use the operational best practices described in this book for themes, skins, pages, and portlet updates in a 24/7 enterprise.

This book discusses the common notations for WebSphere Portal operational architecture and terminology. The architectures described in this book are examples used to present WebSphere Portal operation alternatives that allow you to combine, mix, and define your own Portal architecture.

Portal administrators can find in this book an installation roadmap that includes a suggested approach, best practices, links to required resources, and hints to perform a successful installation and configuration. When the staging environment has been set, this book also provides helpful instructions on moving Portal into production.

Please note that the additional material referenced in the text is not available from IBM.

Table of contents

  1. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  2. Preface
    1. The team that wrote this redbook
    2. Become a published author
    3. Comments welcome
  3. Chapter 1: WebSphere Portal operational architecture
    1. Term definitions
    2. Deployment units
      1. Dispatcher
      2. Reverse caching proxy
      3. HTTP server
      4. WebSphere Portal
      5. Forward caching proxy
      6. Database server
      7. Directory server
    3. Building blocks of the Portal
      1. A basic Portal installation
      2. Configuring the Portal to fit into an established environment
    4. Exploiting network capabilities
    5. A collaborative Portal
    6. Enhanced security Portal
      1. Tivoli Access Manager
      2. Netegrity SiteMinder
    7. Portal clustering
      1. The horizontal Portal cluster
      2. The vertical Portal cluster
    8. Decoupling from back-end systems
    9. Example architectures in operation
      1. The elaborated Portal cluster
      2. The elaborated security Portal cluster
      3. The Availability Gold Standard
  4. Chapter 2: Installing WebSphere Portal
    1. Getting ready for the installation
      1. Overview of production Portal architectures
    2. Suggested roadmap
      1. Planning phase
      2. Installation phase (1/7)
      3. Installation phase (2/7)
      4. Installation phase (3/7)
      5. Installation phase (4/7)
      6. Installation phase (5/7)
      7. Installation phase (6/7)
      8. Installation phase (7/7)
    3. Portal documentation
  5. Chapter 3: Security management
    1. Password maintenance
      1. Proxy authentication with Content Access Service
      2. Changing the Portal database username and password
    2. Credential Vault
      1. How Credential Vault works
      2. Using Credential Vault
    3. Surfacing an application
    4. Managing security
    5. Integrating LDAP
      1. Performance considerations (1/2)
      2. Performance considerations (2/2)
      3. LDAP architecture and schema layout considerations
      4. Using an LDAP server cluster
      5. Using a single LDAP image
      6. LDAP, WebSphere Portal, and the Q/A environment
      7. LDAP administration
  6. Chapter 4: Solution deployment
    1. Understanding J2EE
    2. Understanding a J2EE Portal
      1. Portal structure
      2. Elements of a Portal page
    3. Portal configuration
      1. Customizing the Portal
      2. Installing the portlet (1/2)
      3. Installing the portlet (2/2)
      4. Updating the portlet
      5. Portlet service
      6. Installing theme and skin
  7. Chapter 5: Moving from staging to production
    1. The Portal staging process
    2. Deployment and build process
      1. Determining what to move
      2. Using the XMLAccess tool for moving
      3. Object IDs
      4. The Custom Unique Names portlet
    3. Transferring Portal artifacts using XMLAccess
      1. Transfer process
      2. Exporting a sample page using XMLAccess
      3. Exporting and importing a new page
    4. A step-by-step guide
      1. Preparing the environment
    5. Preparing the worksheet
      1. Example worksheet
    6. Run activities
      1. Verifying the prerequisites
      2. Using XMLAccess to export Portal artifacts
      3. Bundling the supporting files
      4. Transferring the bundle
      5. Distributing the supporting files to a single server
      6. Distributing the supporting files to a cluster
      7. Updating the target configuration
    7. Post transfer actions
      1. Ensuring that the nodes are synchronized
      2. Restarting the server
      3. Activating the portlets
      4. Making any manual changes
    8. How does customization and the transfer process work?
      1. World clock scenario
    9. Troubleshooting and best practices
      1. Plan on a trial run
      2. Problems importing pages
      3. Activate portlets
      4. Synchronize the cluster
      5. Synchronize the nodes without security
  8. Chapter 6: Production procedures and administration activities
    1. Changing the host or domain name
      1. Assumptions
      2. Step-by-step procedures
    2. Changing database servers
      1. Assumptions
      2. Moving from a DB2 database to a DB2 database
      3. Moving from an Oracle database to an Oracle database
      4. Moving from an SQLServer database to an SQLServer database
    3. Changing LDAP servers
      1. Assumptions
      2. Step-by-step procedure
    4. Backup and recovery
      1. Overview of our approach to backup and recovery
      2. Our approach to backup
      3. Our approach to recovery
      4. Backup and recovery for Windows systems
    5. Maintaining a healthy Portal environment
      1. Scheduling regular backups
      2. Reviewing log files
      3. Applying fixes
      4. Getting support
      5. Using basic troubleshooting techniques
      6. Using roadmaps
    6. On Demand clustering solutions
      1. Step-by-step of the On Demand procedure (1/2)
      2. Step-by-step of the On Demand procedure (2/2)
    7. Temporarily removing a clustered node to apply maintenance
      1. Step-by-step procedure to temporarily remove a clustered node
    8. Monitoring the Portal
  9. Chapter 7: A high availability illustration
    1. The sample cluster production environment
    2. Before you begin the procedure
    3. Assumptions
    4. Initial production state
    5. Remove Site B from cluster
    6. Maintenance on Site B
    7. Switch IP traffic from Site A to Site B
    8. Maintenance on Site A
    9. Switch IP traffic from Site B to Site A
    10. Return to Initial Production state
  10. Chapter 8: Performance tuning the environment
    1. Understanding the environment
    2. Application server tuning
      1. Additional notes for an AIX environment
      2. Application server cloning
    3. Database server tuning
      1. IBM DB2 Enterprise Edition Database parameter tuning
      2. Oracle Enterprise Edition Database parameter tuning
      3. Other database considerations
    4. Directory server tuning
      1. Web server tuning tips
      2. Security filters
      3. Dereferencing aliases
    5. Operating system specific tuning parameters
    6. Network tuning
      1. Solaris networking
      2. AIX networking
      3. Windows networking
    7. WebSphere Portal service properties
  11. Appendix A: Operation tools
    1. XMLAccess tool
    2. Script to synchronize nodes
    3. Script to delete portlets
    4. Reference documentation
  12. Appendix B: Portal installation worksheets and samples
    1. Worksheets (1/2)
    2. Worksheets (2/2)
    3. Silent install sample
    4. Verifying Portal installation log files (1/3)
    5. Verifying Portal installation log files (2/3)
    6. Verifying Portal installation log files (3/3)
  13. Appendix C: Changing the mode in WebSphere Portal
    1. Setting read-only mode
    2. Setting read or write mode
  14. Appendix D: Switching database servers
    1. Changing from a DB2 database to another DB2 database
    2. Changing from an Oracle database to another Oracle database
    3. Changing from an SQLServer database to another SQLServer database
  15. Appendix E: Capacity planning
    1. WebSphere Portal V5 or later database
  16. Appendix F: A portal manager for WebSphere Portal
    1. Wily Portal Manager for IBM WebSphere Portal
  17. Appendix G: Additional material
    1. Locating the Web material
    2. Using the Web material
      1. How to use the Web material
  18. Abbreviations and acronyms
  19. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks
    2. Online resources
    3. How to get IBM Redbooks
    4. Help from IBM
  20. Index (1/3)
  21. Index (2/3)
  22. Index (3/3)
  23. Back cover

Product information

  • Title: WebSphere Portal V5.0 Production Deployment and Operations Guide
  • Author(s): Rufus Credle, Jerry Dancy, David Eyerman, Simon Fredrickson, Stefan Liesche, Marcos Lohmann, Carlos Santos
  • Release date: February 2005
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: None