Before installing Information Console, you must prepare the operating system and network environments to ensure that you have all the necessary software and configuration resources in place. This section describes how to prepare these environments before starting the Information Console installation process and discusses deployment concerns that may affect your Information Console installation and how you wish to deploy reports to the web.
Setting up Information Console
You can install Information Console in several ways:
As a separate web application packaged in a WAR or EAR file
This method employs a third-party web or application server that manages the network traffic to the Information Console application. An Information Console WAR or EAR can use native load balancing for iHub clusters, redundancy to support constant report services over the web, and iHub security measures as well as third-party load balancing and security measures.
As a windows service
This method uses the iHub installer to install Information Console as a windows service with an embedded web server to handle network traffic. The windows service installation can integrate with iHub security and load balancing, but does not employ a third-party web or application server, so requires different configuration procedures than a WAR or EAR deployment.
Automatically on the same host with iHub
This method provides reports locally on each iHub machine. For more information about installing iHub, see Installing and Upgrading BIRT iHub on Linux or Installing and Upgrading BIRT iHub on Windows.
For enterprise architectures, installing Information Console on several web servers is recommended.
To deploy a report to the web, you need:
An Information Console installation.
An application server or JSP or servlet engine such as IBM WebSphere.
One or more Actuate designer tools and Actuate BIRT iHub System with Information Console administration.
Actuate BIRT iHub administrator privileges.
Permission to read, write, and modify operating system directories as necessary. For example, the directory Java uses to hold temporary files is defined by the java.io.tmpdir property and is by default the value of the TMP system variable in the Windows environment and /var/tmp in the UNIX and Linux environments. Read and write permission must be provided to the application server running Information Console for this directory.
As a separate web application packaged in a WAR or EAR file