Installation enhancements

Learn about the new features and functionality that are offered by WebSphere Commerce Version 7 that improve your installation experience. Significant installation enhancements in this release include: reduced downtime when you apply interim fixes, and simplified installation and maintenance in the Developer Environment.

Feature Pack 8

Install maintenance packages and enhancement packages as a non-root user

WebSphere Commerce eases the installation process by allowing non-root users to install or uninstall the following WebSphere Commerce maintenance and enhancement packages:
  • Update Installer
  • Fix packs
  • Interim fixes
  • Feature packs
Feature Pack 6 or later

Installation launchpad and First Steps wizard

WebSphere Commerce improves the installation experience by including a launchpad and a First Steps wizard to assist you with installing the feature pack and getting started. The installation launchpad provides links to information to help you install WebSphere Commerce and a pushbutton that starts the feature pack installer. The First Steps wizard helps you do post-installation tasks. It provides links to more sources of information, such as details about new product features and instructions on how to enable features.

Introduced in Feature Pack 3

Scenario-based feature pack installation information

The feature pack installation documentation is consolidated to provide detailed instructions of all the steps that are required to install a feature pack, including the steps for installing all prerequisites. Additionally, the installation steps are subdivided into different scenarios to more accurately reflect installation practices. These scenarios are:
  • Installing WebSphere Commerce on a machine for the first time
  • Installing a feature pack on top of the base product
  • Upgrading from a lower-level feature pack
Providing different steps for each scenario means that users who are installing the feature pack see only the steps that apply to their situation.
Introduced in Feature Pack 2

Simplified installation and enablement in the development environment

The development environment installation process is improved to make fix pack and feature pack installation more streamlined and to require fewer manual interactions. With these new improvements, you are now able to:
  • Select which features you want to enable before you run the installation. Before you initiate the installation, the IBM Installation Manager presents you with a screen in which you can enable individual features, enable all features, or to enable no features. By making a selection on this screen, you do not need to manually enable features post installation.
  • Install the fix pack, feature pack, and optionally the base product at the same time. The IBM Installation Manager technology allows you to create a custom repository that includes all the products you want to install. By creating a repository that includes the base development environment, the fix pack and the feature pack, you can install everything at the same time. For more information about creating a repository, see Setting up and managing multiple identical development environments in an organization.

Reduce downtime when you apply interim fixes

Roll out updates are now available for clustered environments.

This feature enables you to achieve high availability when you apply interim fixes to your WebSphere Commerce application in a clustered environment. Instead of shutting down all nodes to apply a fix, you can roll the fix out to the nodes sequentially, which reduces downtime.

Simplified installation and maintenance in the Developer Environment

WebSphere Commerce Developer Version 7 now uses the IBM Installation Manager for installation and maintenance. Installation Manager provides a central interface where you can keep both Rational Application Developer and WebSphere Commerce Developer updated.

Installation documentation is now available online

In previous releases of WebSphere Commerce, documentation about how to install WebSphere Commerce and other software that was supported by WebSphere Commerce was described in the WebSphere Commerce Installation and Additional Software Guides.

Product packaging enhancements

Product packaging enhancements in Version 7.0 include the shipment of a single DVD, rather than a set of CDs. The single DVD provides a more convenient installation experience since you do not require multiple CDs during the installation process.