Review the user role and activity descriptions to understand how someone with your organizational role might use WebSphere Application Server. If you are new to the product or to the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) specification, the simplified model presented here should help you with the basic flow of activities involved in seeing a J2EE application through to deployment.
Setting up and administering a production environment follows roughly these phases.
Using the Application Server in an application development environment follows roughly these phases.
The product tools (described in Product GUIs and tools) and documentation are geared towards helping you with these activities. As you learn more, you will see ways to tailor the flow of activities to your specific needs.
Take advantage of task overviews. Task overviews are special sets of steps in this documentation set. Each outlines a feasible sequence of tasks for working with an area of product functionality, such as security. The tasks typically reflect the main activities, such as Migrating, Developing, Assembling, Deploying, and so on. Use task overviews to gain broad knowledge of the decisions and actions needed to accomplish your goals. From task overviews, you can drill down to more detailed sub-tasks.
For a list of available task overviews, see the Task overviews section of the All topics by activity view of the online information center.
Mapping to J2EE roles. The following is the mapping of WebSphere Application Server roles and activities to the roles defined by the J2EE 1.3 specification.
J2EE roles | Product roles | Product activities |
Non-applicable | Planner, Installer, IT architect | Planning, Installing product environment |
Application Component Provider | Developer / Programmer | Developing |
Application Assembler | Developer / Programmer | Assembling |
Deployer | Administrator (in production environment) | Deploying, Testing application deployment |
System Administrator | Administrator | Administering |
Non-applicable | All of the above | Migrating, Tuning, Troubleshooting |
Tool Provider, J2EE Product Provider | WebSphere Application Server and product family | Non-applicable |