Overview of the Enabler for WebSphere Application Server

A Silver Fabric enabler runs an external application or application platform, such as a J2EE application server, in a TIBCO Silver® Fabric software environment. TIBCO Silver Fabric Enabler for IBM WebSphere Application Server provides integration between Silver Fabric and IBM WebSphere Application Server. When managed through Silver Fabric, the WebSphere environment is dynamic, centralized, and largely automated. The enabler automatically provisions, controls, and manages a WebSphere clustered environment.

WebSphere Server instances and WebSphere node agents are distributed and run on Silver Fabric Engines as managed servers of a cluster. This centralized management adapts the WebSphere environment so that the life cycle and process state of WebSphere Deployment Managers, managed application servers and node agents is defined through Silver Fabric Policies that are directed by business objectives associated with the target applications.

Architecture

The Silver Fabric engines manage WebSphere Deployment Managers, WebSphere managed server instances and a WebSphere node agent. The Silver Fabric broker and the Silver Fabric engine instance collaborate to perform the following actions:

  • Automatically provision all WebSphere Application Server related and IBM-specific Java SDK software to a machine with Silver Fabric engine. All the software that is automatically provisioned is encapsulated within archive libraries (.zip or tar.gz files) and distributed to computers running Silver Fabric engines. A Silver Fabric engine provisioned with the required WebSphere Application Server-related software along with SDK software can act as a WebSphere node.
  • Automatically define a custom managed-node profile and federate the node to a WebSphere Network Deployment Cell.
  • Automatically start and stop a WebSphere nodeagent process on a node.
  • Automatically start and stop WebSphere application servers on a node, as required by Policies specified in the Silver Fabric broker.
  • Automatically remove and clean up configuration related to WebSphere Server and node from a WebSphere Network Deployment cell, when they are deemed not required as dictated by Policies specified in the Silver Fabric broker.
  • Monitor the health of the WebSphere Server and nodeagent running on a node and retrieve various performance statistics.
  • Optionally, start and manage an instance of a WebSphere Deployment Manager to support a Network Deployment Cell environment.
  • Persist the configuration changes by retaining the installation files during restart.