Installing WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment
Ok. So the first major step to setup Connections 2.5 is to install WebSphere Application Server. In this case I have a relatively small number of users so I plan to install on a single Windows 2003 Standard server. Now IU could just use WAS in a stand-alone deployment however this would make it difficult to later move to a more clustered approach or to have the different Connections services running on different profiles/nodes if needed. So I will go with WAS Network Deployment.

So when you install WAS choose the Network Deployment option. Note that you will need at least Windows Server 2003 SP1. On the server we have SP2 so it gave us a warning that we needed SP1 so I just ignored it and kept going. Also note that at this stage do not Enable Administrative Security. We will be enabling security later.

When you first install WASND from the download it only installs 6.1.0.0. According to the Software Requirements tell us we need 6.1.0.23. The latest fixpack is 6.1.0.27 so I am going to give that a go instead. Go to Fix Central for the fixpack. You will also need to install the Update Installer for WebSphere Software. This is a fairly straight forward process if you follow the instructions.

So now you should be able to start the server and log onto the Integrated Solution Console and see:



Setting up the Application Server for the first node
So now that we have WASND running we need to create a profile for the first node.

From the First Steps screen select Profile Management Tool:


We then choose to create an Application Server. I have chosen the Typical profile creation option. I am not enabling Administrative Security as again we will enable security later. The tool will create new application server called "server1". It is important to note that this server should not be federated with the Deployment Manager as a managed node. You can not install Lotus Connections onto a managed node.

Ok. So we now have WAS Network Deployment Installed, a Deployment Manager, and an Application Server Node (server1). Step 2 is almost complete!

Setting Up Security
For security we are going to use a Federated repository. The Info Centre is pretty good on this topic.

I have setup a Domino LDAP Server as a Federated Repository in our environment.

Now as server1 is not a managed node we need to repeat the security setup for both DMgr and server1. Just make them exactly the same.

Java Heap Size
Lastly we need to expand the Java Heap Side. This is done on the Deployment Manager in order to prevent an out of memory error while installing Lotus Connections. Instructions here.

So that is the WAS server prepared and ready for install of the databases which I will cover next.