Part 1: Plan and prepare

Learn about:

  1. The tutorial scenario
  2. Sample files used in the tutorial
  3. Planning considerations

1.1: The tutorial scenario

You are the system administrator of a banking company. The company has decided to provide tellers, account administrators, and other bank personnel Web-based access to accounts and account information.

You have been asked to set up and administer the first part of such a system -- an application for creating bank accounts online. The bank's IT team has installed and configured WebSphere Application Server Version 3.5 on the appropriate machines, ready for your use.

These files comprise an application that allows user to create savings and checking accounts, which are tracked in a DB2 database. (In the WebSphere samples, these files comprise the Account Sample):

The tutorial will also consider the Transfer sample files. "Transfer" is an application allowing the user to transfer funds among accounts creating using the Account application.

The Transfer application will be considered during the planning discussions. Configuring, securing, and cloning the Transfer application is left as a practice exercise because the steps are so similar to the Account application steps demonstrated in this tutorial.

For more information about Account and Transfer, open the index.html file in the WebSphereSamples directory of your product installation.

1.2: Sample files used in the tutorial

createjsp.html
This HTML file provides an input form by which bank employees can establish online checking and savings accounts for users.

The sample file is located in:

install_root\hosts\default_host\WSsamples_app\web\AccountAndTransfer
where install_root is the root of your WebSphere Application Server installation. Note, the slashes will vary ("\" or "/") depending on your operating system.

CreateAccountJSP.class
This servlet file reads the input data from CreateJSP.html, accesses the Account enterprise bean, and calls a JavaServer Pages (JSP) file to return output to the bank employee.

This sample file is located in:

install_root\hosts\default_host\WSsamples_app\servlets\WebSphereSamples\AccountAndTransfer

CreateAccountJSP.jsp
This JavaServer Pages (JSP) file returns output using HTML tags for the static output and JSP tags for variable output.

This sample file is located in:

install_root\hosts\default_host\WSsamples_app\web\AccountAndTransfer

Account.jar
The enterprise beans in this Java Archive (JAR) file read and write persistent account data from a DB2 database to establish new accounts.

This sample file is located in:

install_root\deployableEJBs

1.3: Planning considerations

As an administrator, you have to consider how to organize and administer these files in the WebSphere administrative domain. Remember, this section will discuss both the Account and Transfer applications, but the tutorial steps will involve only the Account application.

Availability considerations

After you use the console to configure an application, you can start and stop the resources in the application in unison by starting and stopping the application. It is possible to configure the Account and Transfer file sets into one large application so that when you make one available, the other becomes available, too.

However, in this case it makes sense to configure the Account application files into one application and the Transfer application files into another. This way, you can take the Transfer application offline to perform maintenance without affecting the users of the Account application. The converse is also true.

These applications are likely to have somewhat different audiences, which has implications not only for their availability, but for security.

Security considerations

You consult the Security help and learn that security is applied at the application level and again at the resource level.

In simplified terms, this means a user must first gain access to the application. Then he or she must gain access to individual methods in the resources (files) comprising the application. For example, suppose two users can access an application. One user might be permitted to use only the read-only methods, while the other user can access methods that allow editing the application data (write access).

If you combine the Account and Transfer file sets into one application, there are certain security settings the two file sets will have to share. For example, if you select the "basic" challenge type for logging users into Account, you will have to use that same challenge type for Transfer.

In contrast, if you configure the file sets as separate applications, you can use different challenge types. For example, the security system can prompt Account application users for a user ID and password, while access to Transfer can require users to present digital certificates.

There are no global security settings for resource security. The security you apply to the methods of a resource stay with that resource. They are not affected if you remove the resource from one application and add it to another.

When you are finished planning, it is time to begin configuring an application for the Account file set. You have two options:

The tutorial demonstrates the first option, with some discussion of the second option.

Go to next part of tutorial

Return to beginning