Course Description
In this hands-on course, students explore the advanced operational aspects of an IBM WebSphere Portal Version 6.0. Students practice the necessary skills for an administrator or architect to perform such tasks as installing and configuring WebSphere Portal, migrating to a lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory and database, creating a vertically clustered WebSphere Portal node, deploying resources (such as portlets, themes and skins) in a clustered environment, and troubleshooting a portal installation. In addition to the basic operational tasks, students explore portal topologies and installation scenarios.

Class Length
2 days

Objectives
The target audience for this course is IBM customers, Independent Software Vendors, Systems Integrators, and IBM technical staff. Architects and developers responsible for implementing solutions using WebSphere Portal version 6 will benefit as well.
Who will benefit from this course
The target audience for this course is IBM customers, Independent Software Vendors, Systems Integrators, and IBM technical staff. Architects and developers responsible for implementing solutions using WebSphere Portal version 6 will benefit as well.

Prerequisites
The prerequisites for this course include Administration skills using WebSphere Administration Server Version 6.0, acquired through experience and/or completion of IBM WebSphere Application Server V6 Administration(SW246) Knowledge of portals and WebSphere Portal, acquired by completing IBM WebSphere Portal Version 6.0 Fundamentals (WP010) Basic knowledge of portal security concepts, acquired by completing IBM WebSphere Portal Version 6.0: Administration 1 (WP710)

Course Outline

This course covers the following topics:

Identifying WebSphere Portal architecture and high availability topologies

• Vertical and Horizontal Portal Clusters
• Replicating Databases
• Replicating LDAP Servers
• Example Topologies

Defining WebSpnhere Portal installation scenarios from standalone servers to clustered environments

• Installing WebSphere Portal with an existing instance of WebSphere Application Server
• Installing coexisting WebSphere Portal products on the same machine
• Advanced installation options
• Verifying Installation
• Troubleshooting Installation Problems

Creating a portal cluster and implement vertical and horizontal scaling

• Network Deployment concepts
• Cluster concepts
• Vertical clusters
• Horizontal clusters
• Steps for creating a portal cluster
• Cluster topology
• Session persistence and caching
• Dynamic caching

Deploying portlets, skins, and themes to a cluster using various administrative tools

• Portlet deployment
• Node synchronization
• Review of themes and skins
• Using administrative scripting tools
• Creating themes and skins
• Installing skins and themes in a cluster

Moving portal content from staging to production environments

• Portal staging process
• Build a release process
• Full or solution release
• Incremental/differential release
• XML configuration interface tool (xmlaccess)
• Building a differential release
• Using the ReleaseBuilder tool

Troubleshooting problems in a clustered environment

• Problem determination overview of components
• Categories of problems
• WebSphere and Portal logs
• How to enable tracing in WebSphere and Portal
• Using the IBM Support Assistant
• Using the Tivoli Performance Viewer

Performing database backups and other production procedures in a clustered environment

• Backup configuration and restore configuration procedures
• Database and LDAP directory backup/restore procedures
• How to switch the Portal database to another server
• How to switch the LDAP user registry to another server
• How to apply Portal and WebSphere updates and fixes in a clustered environment
• Overview of Config split
• Steps to configure Config split for a clustered environment
• How to implement a database configuration split
• Enabling support for multiple LDAP servers and multiple realms
• Configuring multiple LDAP directories