WebSphere Application Server V7.0: Concepts ... - IBM Redbooks

3.1.7 Administrative agent
An administrative agent is a component that provides enhanced management
capabilities for stand-alone (Express and Base) application servers. This is a
new concept introduced with WebSphere Application Server V7.0.
In previous versions of WebSphere Application Server, each stand-alone server
was a single point of management containing its own administrative console.
With V7.0, most of the administrative components are separated from the
application server runtime. See Figure 3-8.
WebSphere Application Server
V5 & V6 Base Product Architecture
Cell
Configuration
Node A
Configuration
Server
Configuration
Application
Server
Node A
Node Agent is
not included in
Base product
Integrated Solutions
Console
Admin
scripts
(wsadmin)
Figure 3-8 Comparison of V5, V6 and V7.0 base product architectures
WebSphere Application Server
V7.0 Base Product Architecture
Cell
Configuration
Node A
Configuration
Server
Configuration
Administrative
Agent
Application
Server
Node A
Administrative Agent
is included in
Base product
Integrated Solutions
Console
Admin
scripts
(wsadmin)
All configurations related to the application server are directly connected to the
administrative agent that provides services to administrative tools.
An administrative agent can manage multiple stand-alone server instances on a
single system or z/OS image. When using an administrative agent, as the
number of application server instances increases, the redundancy of the
administration footprint (for each application server) is therefore eliminated.
Chapter 3. WebSphere Application Server concepts 63