The application edition manager for WebSphere Extended Deployment manages interruption-free production application deployments. Interruption-free deployment prevents loss of service when you install an application update in your environment.
The application edition manager, also provides an application versioning model that supports multiple deployments of the same application in a WebSphere Extended Deployment cell. Each deployment has a unique edition name. The edition manager offers a choice of which edition to activate on a WebSphere Extended Deployment cluster, so you can roll out an application update or revert to a previous level.
The edition manager is fully integrated with WebSphere Extended Deployment, interacting with the on demand router (ODR), dynamic workload balancing, and the application placement manager. This integration ensures predictable application behavior when you apply application updates, and a smooth transition from one application edition to another while the system continues to manage your application performance goals. You can access application update and rollout process with the administrative console, including edition activation across the application servers. Scripting application programming interfaces enable the integration of edition management functions with automated application deployment.
Feature | Web applications | IIOP, EJB, or JMS applications |
---|---|---|
Multiple editions of applications | Supported | Supported |
Application rollout | Supported | Supported |
Interruption-free application update, driven by the ODR and HTTP communication | Supported | Not supported, if the EJB, JMS, or IIOP components are directly exposed to an external client. The ODR does not support communication with IIOP. |
Validation mode | Supported | Not supported |
Concurrent activation | Supported | Not supported |
1 The ODR does not support communication with IIOP, so any EJB, JMS, or IIOP components called directly by an external client cannot utilize this feature.
WebSphere Application Server includes an administrative function called rollout update. Rollout update provides a basic application upgrade rollout, but is not interruption-free. With WebSphere Extended Deployment installed, the rollout update function is available, but the application edition manager is the preferred way to upgrade applications.
The application edition manager supports your overall application life cycle, and enables application updates and seamless, interruption-free application deployments to your production environment.