To get started with WebSphere Application Server, understand the individual products in the product family to determine which product best suits your needs. Then order that product, prepare your operating system for the installation and install the product, create profiles that contains application servers, and deploy applications on your servers for your customers to access. Deploying applications is covered in detail in another part of the information center. The Getting started section of the installation center focuses on product descriptions, package descriptions, installation procedures, and migration.
IBM WebSphere Application Server products provide a next-generation application server on an industry-standard foundation. Each product addresses a distinct set of scenarios and needs. WebSphere Application Server, Version 6 product offerings are described in rtop_overview.html.
Planning
See Planning the installation for a description of typical scenarios for each WebSphere Application Server product.
Installing
See Task overview: Installing for a description of installing the WebSphere Application Server product and other installable components on the product disc.
Configuring
See Creating profiles through the graphical user interface for a description of installing profiles that define a deployment manager, a custom managed node, or a stand-alone Application Server.
Migrating
See Overview of migration and coexistence and Migrating and coexisting for a description of how to migrate applications and configuration data from a previous version of WebSphere Application Server.
Using the Samples Gallery
See Accessing the Samples (Samples Gallery) for a description of the set of Samples that ship with each product. The Samples demonstrate common Web application tasks.
Deploying applications
The information center describes a way to sample WebSphere Application Server functionality by quickly deploying Web components, such as servlets and JSP files. The method is not recommended as an official development method. See Fast paths for WebSphere Application Server to get started.