WebSphere Application Server - Express, Version 6.0.x     Operating Systems: AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, Windows

What is new for administrators

This topic highlights what is new or changed in Version 6.0.x for users who are going to customize, administer, monitor, and tune production server environments. It also addresses administrators who are going to deploy and operate applications.

New The biggest improvements and changes in system administration, monitoring, and tuning can be summarized as follows:

Changes to the default configuration

The administrative console port number has changed. For additional information, see Using the administrative console.
http://hostname:9090/admin                    // OLD ADDRESS
http://hostname:9060/ibm/console              // NEW ADDRESS

Application deployment improvements, including fine grained application update

Deploying applications is significantly easier and more efficient. Highlights include JSR-88 support, simplified EAR file configuration, administrative support as you migrate your 5.x applications, and ability to perform fine grained application updates. When updating an application, only the portion of the application code that actually changed needs to be presented to the system. The application management logic will calculate the minimum actions that the system needs to execute in order to update the application. Under certain circumstances the update can occur without stopping any portion of the running application.

For additional information, see New: Application deployment improvements.

Enhanced administrative infrastructure, with J2EE 1.4 related changes

The J2EE 1.4 specification added several requirements for application server vendors to implement in support of administration. This revision of the J2EE specification adds requirements to support:
  • Java Management Extensions (JMX 1.2)
  • J2EE Management Specification (JSR 77)
  • J2EE Deployment (JSR 88)
  • J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA 1.5)

In addition to J2EE specification related administration features, the embedded messaging component of WebSphere Application Server that supports Java Messaging Service (JMS) has been redesigned to be significantly better integrated with the application server administration.

For additional information, see New: Enhanced administrative infrastructure through J2EE 1.4 related changes.

Growing set of administrative commands

Automation of administrative tasks in Version 6.0.x is made easier through the new AdminTask feature of wsadmin. Many of the more involved tasks for administration have been implemented using this new feature which supports interactive execution and combines many individual scripting commands into a single task oriented command.

A new wsadmin scripting object AdminTask is introduced in this release. Various AdminTask commands are implemented for important administrative scenarios such as server management, cluster management and resource management. AdminTask commands provide various user friendly and task oriented wsadmin commands. AdminTask commands may have multiple steps for some complicated administrative tasks similar to the wizard in the console. AdminTask commands are grouped based on their function areas.

Detailed help information for AdminTask commands and command groups is available through various AdminTask help commands. All AdminTask commands can be executed in interactive mode, which leads users step by step, interactively. At the end of execution, the corresponding AdminTask command is generated to help you learn the AdminTask command syntax.

For more information, see AdminTask object for scripted administration and Commands for the AdminTask object.

Improved installation and configuration, with profiles

Installation of Application Servers is simplified and faster with the introduction of profiles. For administrators, configurations can be managed independently from the product binary files.

The installation program installs the binary system files that can only modified by product maintenance tools like product upgrade or PTF installer, and are not changed by end users. After installation, you run the Profile creation wizard to create profiles. Each profile is a run-time environment that includes configuration files, the default location for deployed applications, logs, and other data. All profiles on a machine share the system files, but do not change them.

The Version 6.0.x product installation program installs the binary system files that may be read-only. It also creates an initial profile, which is a run-time execution environment that includes configuration files, the default location for deployed applications, logs, and other data. All profiles on a machine can share the same system files, but do not change the system files.

For additional information, see New: Improved installation and configuration, with profiles.

Improved monitoring and performance tuning

Improve the startup speed of your applications and servers

Two new settings enable you to fine tune the startup speed of applications that are configured to start automatically when the server starts. A new starting weight setting lets you specify the order in which to start applications when the server starts. A new background application setting lets you specify whether an application must initialize fully before its server starts, or if the server can proceed without waiting for the application.

For more details, see Configuring an application.

   
Improvements in monitoring application flow

Request Metrics, which allows you to trace response times for individual transactions through WebSphere Application Server, provides more instrumentation, including asynchronous beans, Web Services, and messaging resources, as described in Viewing performance data from request metrics.

You can be more selective about what instrumentation is enabled. For example, if you want instrumentation data only for the Web container and JMS, select these data in the administrative console and the detailed instrumentation data are only generated for the components you select. The edge transactions are traced for the other components that are not specified for instrumentation. See Understanding the data that you can collect with request metrics for additional information.

You can use filters to determine the transactions for which to record data. Request Metrics now includes filters for Web services and messaging resources, as described in Understanding the data that you can collect with request metrics.

Request Metrics now supports IPv6 addressing. If requests originate from a client with IPv6 only address, filtering can be done based on the IPv6 address. Furthermore, if the server uses IPV6 addresses preferentially, the same will appear in the correlators generated by request metrics.

   
PMI improvements

The Performance Monitoring Infrastructure (PMI), which allows you to monitor the overall health of WebSphere Application Server, is now enabled out-of-the box. These monitoring APIs follow the J2EE 1.4 Performance Data Framework specification. Statistics can be enabled using predefined statistic sets or can be selected using the custom option. With the custom option, you can now enable and disable individual statistics. New additional PMI statistics such as messaging are provided. You also can add your own statistics using the PMI custom API.

   
Easier access to data about system health

The Tivoli Performance Viewer gives users graphical and chart views of the PMI data. This tool has now been integrated into the administrative console to provide an easy, accessible, lightweight monitoring solution.

   

Default messaging provider

Default messaging provider

The default messaging provider is installed and runs as part of WebSphere Application Server, and needs no further administration.

The default messaging provider is installed and runs as part of WebSphere Application Server, and is based on service integration technologies. The default messaging provider supports JMS 1.1 domain-independent interfaces (sometimes referred to as "unified" or "common" interfaces). This enables applications to use the same, common, interfaces for both point-to-point and publish/subscribe messaging. This also enables both point-to-point and publish/subscribe messaging within the same transaction. With JMS 1.1, this approach is recommended for new applications. The domain-specific interfaces are supported for backwards compatibility for applications developed to use domain-specific queue interfaces, as described in section 1.5 of the JMS 1.1 specification.

For more details, perform an information center search for:
Using the default messaging provider
   

Even more administrative improvements!

System applications

System applications are J2EE enterprise applications that are central to a WebSphere Application Server product, such as the administrative console and file transfer application. System applications are no longer shown in the list of installed applications on the console Enterprise Applications page, to prevent users from accidentally stopping, updating or removing them.

Because system applications are an important part of a WebSphere Application Server product, system applications are deployed when the product is installed and are updated only through a product fix or upgrade. Users cannot change the metadata for system applications such as J2EE bindings or J2EE extensions. Metadata requiring a change must be updated through a product fix or upgrade.

For more information, refer to System applications.

   
Common networking service for all components

The new channel framework model provides a common networking service for all components, including IBM service integration technologies, WebSphere Secure Caching Proxy, and the high availability manager core group bridge service. This model consists of network protocol stacks or transport chains that are used for I/O operations within an Application Server environment. Transport chains consist of one or more types of channels, each of which supports a different type of I/O protocol, such as TCP, DCS or HTTP. Network ports can be shared among all of the channels within a chain. The channel framework function automatically distributes a request arriving on that port to the correct I/O protocol channel for processing.

   
You now can configure Web server plug-ins from the administrative console

The Web server plug-ins that are used to forward HTTP requests from a supported Web server to an application server now can be configured from the administrative console. Previously the configuration file for these plug-ins had to be manually edited whenever configuration changes were required.

   
Administer Web servers from the application server console

A new Web server model definition lets you manage a Web server configuration from the administrative console.

   
Most resource providers are available for 5.x and 6.0.x nodes
For the following J2EE resources used by applications, all functions are available for all scopes, including Version 5.x and 6.0.x nodes:
  • JDBC providers
  • Generic JMS providers
  • WebSphere embedded JMS providers
  • WebSphere MQ JMS providers
  • Mail providers
  • Resource environment providers
  • URL providers

The generic JMS provider is available for cell scope and Version 6.0.x nodes for backwards compatibility. For Version 6.0.x nodes, you are encouraged to use the WebSphere default messaging provider.

The following J2EE resources have limitations on Version 5.0.x nodes:
  • Resource adapters

    The format of resource adapter configuration has been changed considerably to accommodate JCA 1.5 in J2EE 1.4. Both JCA 1.5 and JCA 1.0 resource adapters may be defined at the cell scope. However, JCA 1.5 adapters will not be available on a Version 5.x node. For Version 6.0.x nodes and servers, both JCA 1.5 and JCA 1.0 resources may be defined. For Version 5.x nodes and servers, only JCA 1.0 resource adapters may be defined.

  • WebSphere default message provider

    The WebSphere Default Message Provider is new in Version 6.0.x. Its definitions may be created at the cell scope containing 6.0.x and 5.x nodes, but it will not be available on the Version 5.x nodes. Its definitions can be created on any Version 6.0.x nodes or servers, but not on a Version 5.x node or server.

   
The SOAP connector can be interoperated across 5.x and 6.0.x nodes, but RMI connector cannot

Cross release connector interopration is currently supported only by the SOAP connector. It is unsupported for RMI connector. A Version 5.x wsadmin client may only use the SOAP connector to connect to Version 6.0.x deployment manager. A Version 6.0.x wsadmin client may only use the SOAP connector to connect to Version 5.x node agent or application server.

   



Sub-topics
New: Application deployment improvements
New: Enhanced administrative infrastructure through J2EE 1.4 related changes
New: Improved installation and configuration, with profiles
Concept topic    

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Last updated: Jun 8, 2005 12:45:23 PM EDT
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