WebLogic Platform ISV Partners' Guide
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WebLogic Platform provides a rich set of system installation, configuration, and administration tools that enable you to install and configure a custom environment in which WebLogic applications can run. Whether you are redistributing WebLogic Platform with your applications, or distributing an application that runs on WebLogic Platform, you will want to use these tools to package a product that your customers can install and use easily.
This chapter introduces tools for the following tasks:
The configuration tasks that you or your customers undertake may include the following:
As a partner, accommodating these tasks typically requires you to do the following:
The remaining sections of this chapter introduce two sets of tools: configuration tools for creating a domain, a domain template, or an extension template, and tools for incorporating templates or template extensions into your customers' environments.
As summarized in Configuration Wizard and Template Builder, the Configuration Wizard is a stand-alone Java application that can be run independently of WebLogic Server to simplify the jobs of creating, configuring, and customizing a WebLogic domain. A domain is the basic unit of administration in a WebLogic Platform environment: it comprises the WebLogic Platform components, user-written programs, machines, and resources, such as databases, needed for a particular application.
Typically, the Configuration Wizard is used to:
If you are creating a domain for developing or running applications for use with WebLogic Platform ISV Edition, use the following domain templates as appropriate.
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Basic WebLogic Workshop Domain Note: Follow the instructions provided in Creating and Configuring Your Portal Development Environment to create this domain. |
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Basic WebLogic Integration Domain Note: Follow the instructions provided in Creating and Configuring Your Portal Development Environment to create this domain. |
For complete details about using the Configuration Wizard, see Creating WebLogic Configurations Using the Configuration Wizard.
For complete details about WebLogic domains, see the following:
The Template Builder is a standalone Java application that prompts you to create custom configuration and extension templates that can be used later for creating and updating domains via the Configuration Wizard. Using an existing domain or template, the Template Builder guides you through the process of creating custom configuration and extension templates. You can then package these templates or extension templates with your software so your customers can use them to customize their WebLogic Platform environments.
The Template Builder is especially useful for ensuring that the required environment for WebLogic-based products can be installed and configured easily by your customers at their sites.
For complete details about the Template Builder, see the following topics from Creating WebLogic Configurations Using the Configuration Wizard:
WebLogic Platform provides a number of administration tools, in addition to the Configuration Wizard, that you can use to customize the environment in which you run WebLogic Platform or any of its components. This section briefly describes some of these tools.
The WebLogic Server Administration Console is a browser-based, graphical user interface that you can use to manage a domain and, as an alternative to the Configuration Wizard, to modify a domain. As a Web application, it is accessible from any supported browser with network access to the Administration Server, on which it resides.
The Administration Server for a domain is the central point from which that domain is managed. In every domain, one instance of WebLogic Platform in each domain is configured to serve this function. All other WebLogic Platform instances in a domain are called Managed Servers. In a domain with only a single WebLogic Platform instance, that server functions as both the Administration Server and a Managed Server.
You can use the WebLogic Server Administration Console to:
For complete details about the WebLogic Server Administration Console, see Administration Console Online Help.
The WebLogic Integration Administration Console is a browser-based, graphical user interface that you can use to manage and monitor the resources required for your WebLogic Integration applications. The job of managing and monitoring these resources involves the following tasks:
Note: Not all functionality in the WebLogic Integration Administration Console is available with WebLogic Platform ISV Edition. For a complete list of functionality you can use from this tool, see WebLogic Platform Components Included in ISV Edition.
For more information, see Managing WebLogic Integration Solutions.
Portal administration involves many traditional system administration activities, as well as some relatively newer tasks, such as controlling the behavior, content, and appearance of portals. While portal administrators do not typically develop the resources required for a portal Web site, they use those resources to build, maintain, and modify the portals posted there.
Note: The WebLogic Administration Portal is not available with WebLogic Platform ISV Edition.
To help you manage portal Web sites built with BEA WebLogic Platform, the WebLogic Administration Portal provides you with tools for various functions, including the following:
WebLogic Portal also provides third-party administration tools, available from a user interface in WebLogic Portal, that allow you to manage various applications. For more information, see the WebLogic Administration Portal Online Help.
WebLogic Platform provides several techniques for starting server instances and clusters, all of which can be encapsulated in WebLogic Server startup scripts that are installed with the domain template. Your choice of technique for starting an embedded server depends on the complexity of the WebLogic Platform domain that you install, the number of computers that host server instances within the domain, and the underlying operating system.
For example, which startup script you use may depend on whether the domain in the target environment is characterized by one of the following:
For more information about startup scripts, see the following topics:
After you create the domain templates or extension templates appropriate for your application, you need to consider how you want your customers to install WebLogic Platform (or selected components) and configure their environments. This section introduces WebLogic Platform utilities that can help you provide your customers with a simplified, easy-to-use method of configuring their environments:
Silent-mode installation is a non-interactive method of installing software on one or more machines. It is accomplished via a script that specifies the installation options that users provide during an interactive installation. A silent-mode installation can be performed on both Windows and UNIX systems.
When a customer uses silent-mode, the installation program reads the values for various installation options from the silent-mode script, instead of prompting the customer to enter values in real time. Once you set the required configuration options in a script, the same script can be used for multiple installations on different machines.
For more information about silent-mode installation, see Installing WebLogic Platform Using Silent-Mode Installation in Installing BEA WebLogic Platform.
As a partner, you may especially appreciate one very useful feature of the Configuration Wizard: its ability to run in silent mode. When run in this way, the Configuration Wizard is executed as a non-interactive process.
Silent-mode configuration enables you to define configuration information for a domain once and then duplicate that domain on other machines. Thus, by using this feature, you can easily duplicate a domain on customers' machines.
In silent mode, the Configuration Wizard reads configuration settings from a script that you create, manually, before execution. Before your customers can run the Configuration Wizard in silent mode, however, you must first create a script in which you define the settings usually entered manually by a customer during GUI-mode or console-mode configuration. When running in silent mode, the Configuration Wizard queries the specified configuration script to obtain the configuration settings it needs. It does not prompt the user to provide information in real time.
For more information about silent-mode domain configuration, see Creating a Script for Silent-Mode Configuration in Creating WebLogic Configurations Using the Configuration Wizard.
When you combine silent-mode installation with silent-mode configuration, you have a powerful method that lets you install your WebLogic product and configure a domain for it in a way that is transparent to customers. When your customers run a silent-mode installation and configuration, they experience the work of setting up an environment as a seamless process.
Note that a silent-mode installation script cannot invoke the Configuration Wizard. However, you can create a simple shell script or command file that sequentially runs both the WebLogic Platform installer and the Configuration Wizard in silent mode. For details about silent installation and configuration, see the following:
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