Deciding what type of environment to configure

The installation process installs IBM Process Center or IBM Process Server server components based on your selection. Process Center provides a repository for process assets, a runtime environment for testing and studying the performance of processes, and a console for administering access to assets and deploying processes to development, test, staging, or production environments. Process Server is a runtime environment for process applications and a data warehouse for collecting performance data from the applications. It includes administrative consoles for managing and maintaining the runtime environments and data warehouses.

To use these server components, you must configure an environment for them. Configuring environments for both Process Server and Process Center is two separate activities: you first configure an environment for one, and then another environment for the other.

When you install (deploy) a process application snapshot to a process server, the assets of that snapshot are moved from the Process Center repository to the selected process server. The process server can be connected to a Process Center or offline. Depending on your needs and whether the process server is connected or offline, you can use the Process Center console or wsadmin commands to install the snapshot. See Installing process application snapshots.

If you choose the offline server option during typical installation, Process Center is not installed. You might choose to install an offline Process Server if you already have a Process Center installed, or if the Process Server is behind a firewall. Once Process Server is installed, you can add the offline server to a Process Center in order to deploy your process applications.

If you are installing IBM® BPM Advanced: Process Server, the Process Center option is not available.