Purpose

There are many pieces to an enterprise application. With distributed applications, managing these pieces and making sure that they are all delivered to the right spot is challenging. Within the WebSphere Application Server Enterprise Edition (WAS EE) Component Broker (CB) environment, the Systems Management End User Interface (SMEUI) helps you do this.

SMEUI manages the run-time environment in WAS EE. Using SMEUI, you can deploy application families, configure servers, and server groups; define the physical topology by associating servers to specific hardware nodes; enable security and debugging; and start, stop, and monitor servers.

If your role within your organization is Systems Manager, someone who needs to know all of this in great detail, then there are Component Broker manuals and courses that will give you what you need. The purpose of this tool mentor is to help a developer or first time user deploy an application into a predetermined test environment.

Overview

Before proceeding, be sure you are familiar with the concepts of Servers, Server Groups, and Management Zone. This tool mentor provides a quick summary of each, but much more information is available in the Component Broker documentation.

You can deploy and install your application into managed server groups or as a standalone application. We will be discussing the managed server group configuration.

To work through this, it's helpful to have a configuration in mind. The configuration can be created before or after you load the application family into the host image. Creation of the configuration is generally a one shot deal. Once you have it set up, you keep using it. It's the shell in which your applications run.

Tool Steps

To deploy an application using the SMEUI:

  1. Create the Application Family DDL
  2. Create a configuration
  3. Load the Application Family
  4. Configure the server group
  5. Activate the configuration
  6. Start the server

Assumption: You are on a CB development workstation that has Object Builder installed and you have access to the server environment via SMEUI.

1. Create the Application Family DDL To top of page

Creation of the application family is done using Object Builder, as part of another step—that is, before you start this step in the process. When you create an application family package in Object Builder, the result of the Generate step is a DDL file that describes all elements of the application family. If you are familiar with the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) programming model, this is analogous to the Deployment Descriptor that's used with EJB applications.

In Component Broker the directory structures used by Object Builder and SMEUI are fixed, so what you need to know at this time is the location into which the DDL file was generated. Be careful—do not move it to another location. Everything is relative to the fixed directory structure created by Object Builder. Part of this process is to copy the run-time files from the development environment to the run-time environment, and the tools need to know where to find those files.

The example application family we'll be working with is called TravelAppFam, a travel agency booking system. There is one application inside it, called TravelApp.

To generate the application family DDL file, in Object Builder, select Generate from the pop-up menu of the application family, TravelAppFam. If you are using DB2 for persistence, two DDL files are generated—one with the word "specific" in the file name and one without. You'll need to load both in the host image in the next step.

Once you've generated the DDL file, take note of where it is. You'll need to know this in the next step. If you are using Windows NT, it will be under the OB project directory, Working\Nt\Production\TravelAppFam.

2. Create a configuration To top of page

Next, set up a simple configuration for a Managed Server Group in a Management Zone that will be isolated from all others. A Management Zone is a grouping of configurations, each configuration being a logical-to-physical mapping of resources (servers) to host images (machine nodes).

Within a given management zone it's possible to have many configurations. Only one configuration can be active a any given time. You determine which set of resources to run on a given set of nodes by activating a particular configuration.

You may also define Server Groups, to manage several server processes running as clones on several different host images. You define the group, and the individual server instances that will be part of the group. Then you assign, or associate, a server instance to a particular host image (machine node). Finally assign your application family to the Server Group and it will run on all server instances that are part of the group.

To create a configuration, server group, and server on HostXYZ:

  1. Start SMEUI.
  2. To set the view to Control, from the View menu, select User Level > Control. This will enable you to see things that users do not normally need to be concerned with on a daily basis.
  3. To create a management zone, select Insert from the Management Zone folder's pop-up menu. Enter a name, for example, "My Management Zone" (blanks are allowed).

    The newly created management zone is more sparsely populated than other zones that already exist. The new zone does not need those things because they are already present in the other zones, and the new zone can still use them. By having your zone, you can work and not disrupt the other servers (processes) that are running.

  4. To create a configuration, select Insert from the Configuration folder's pop-up menu. Type in the name; for example, "Primary Configuration".
  5. To create a server group and server instance, from the menu, select Tasks > Create.  A wizard will walk you through the creation process. Your zone and configuration will already be available; select them and move them across as needed.

    Each time you want to create a new entity, such as a server group or server, simply type the name into the entry field and it will be created for you. You can also create zones and configurations using this dialog.

    Create the server group "TravelApp ServerGroup" and server "TravelApp01". This is where you assign a particular server instance to run a specific host node. If you have only one host in your domain, then this will not be so evident.

    Note: It's useful to use a number with the server name because the server name must be unique. Since you're putting it in a managed server group, you expect to have more 'cloned' instances in the future.

3. Load the Application Family To top of page

Now, move the executables and other files over to the server environment. When you load an Application Family, you are loading it and all of its associated files onto a particular host image (node) where it, or any of its parts, will run. You're not defining or starting servers, but rather making the files available with the anticipation that a server from the given Application Family will be configured on this host.

  1. To load the Application Family, navigate to the Host Images folder in the SMEUI. It's at the bottom of the tree. If you can't see it, select View > User Level and make sure it's set to Control.
  2. From HostXYZ's pop-up menu, select Load Application.
  3. Use the Browse button to locate the DDL file for the Application Family you wish to load (TravelAppFam.ddl). It will likely be in the directory <project>\Working\Nt\Production\TravelAppFam, but this depends on what you set as the production directory within the Object Builder build settings.
  4. If there is one, load the "specific" DDL, following the same steps.
  5. Verify that everything was moved to the server environment by checking that the files were moved to the host node. On a Windows NT server, the files are located in <cbroker>\data\ntApps3.0\TravelAppFam, where <cbroker> is the directory in which CB was installed. There will be a subdirectory for each Application Family loaded. You should see the DLL, DDL, and any Jars associated with your Application Family.

4. Configure the server group To top of page

This step is where you actually assign (associate) the Application (server process) to a Server group.

To configure a server group, from the menu, select Tasks > Configure Server. A wizard will walk you through the configuration process; select the applications, zone, configuration, and server group you want to configure.

5. Activate the configuration To top of page

A management zone can have many possible configurations, only one of which can be active at a time. The active configuration is the one that's in the Host Image.

Start the servers by activating a configuration in a management zone. The Component Broker runtime will roll your new configuration in and the old one out, in an orderly and controlled manner. Depending on how you have the servers configured, the server may start immediately or it may wait until the first request comes in.

To activate a configuration, select Activate from the Management Zone's pop-up menu. The time it takes CB to complete this operation will depend on the complexity of the previously active configuration, how it was being used, and the complexity of the configuration being activated.

6. Start the server To top of page

Although you may not be required to start and stop the server very often, it's valuable to know how. This will also show you where to manage the servers.

The System Management model includes the Model world, where you make logical associations of resources (for example, configurations), and the Image world, which represents the physical structures and currently active entities and relationships. When you operate on an Image, you are doing it in real time; when you operate on a Model, you are doing it off-line.

In the Image world, you ensure the servers are running:

  1. To start a server, expand the Host Images folder to find your server.
  2. Select the server image. The information line at the bottom of the window will show a status message. For example, if the server is running, the message will be something like "run Immediate running 0 0 excellent".
  3. If it is not running, select Start from the server's pop-up menu to start it.

 

This information is provided by IBM Corporation.

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