Frequently Asked WebSphere Interview Questions

1. What is WebSphere?
Answer: WebSphere is a set of Java-based tools from IBM that allows customers to create and manage sophisticated business Web sites. The central WebSphere tool is the WebSphere Application Server (WAS), an application server that a customer can use to connect Web site users with Java applications or servlets.

2. What is model spi and what is it used for?
Answer: Web sphere uses a different model for providing content aggregation and navigation The available models are Content model, navigation model, navigation selection model, and layout model. These models are provided using model spi.

3. What is Web Content Management System (WCMS)?
Answer: Web Content management system is a software system that helps build and manage Web entities (Html pages, documents, etc.) Once setup is complete it provides templates for authoring, workflow management to the content. It is easy to use for a nontechnical user.

4. What are Authoring and Presentation Templates?
Answer: Authoring Template- This template is defined using authoring portlet, where we define the access information, form properties, and default content. It does not contain any information for presentation and The elements in this form are linked to the presentation template.
Presentation Template- This allows to change the look of a page without having to update what is being displayed on a page. It will allow defining Page style, Page layout and map element to the authoring templates.

5. What are the 3 different ways of installing a portlet application in WebSphere Portal?
Answer: Install a portlet using the portal administration page using Web Modules portlet.
Install a portlet using XML access tool.
Pre-deploy a portlet as a standard EAR by installing the portlet WAR file in WAS console and then registering the portlet using XML access.

6. What is LDAP realm support and why would I want to use it?
Answer: A Realm allows you to group users from one or more LDAP trees of one user registry and expose them as a coherent user population to WebSphere Portal; this is also referred to as horizontal partitioning. Realms allow flexible user management with various configuration options; for example, you can combine principals from one or more corporate LDAP tree. A realm must be mapped to a Virtual Portal to allow the realm’s defined user population to login to the Virtual Portal.

7. What Is Queuemanager In Ibm Websphere Mq? What Does Queuemanager Do?
Answer: QueueManageris primary component of WebSphere MQ or WMQ. queue manager is responsible for storing and routing messages to other Queue Manager within MQ and it also communicates with outside world e.g. Java program or any other MQ client.

8. What Is Ccdt File On Websphere Mq Or Wmq?
Answer: CCDT file or Client Channel Definition table is a binary file which contains connection details required by MQ clients e.g. Java application using JMS to connect to MQ Server. In order to connect to MQ Server, MQ clients need MQ Server hostname, MQ Server port name, and server channel name. All these details are encapsulated in CCDT file named as AMQCLCHL.TAB. In order to create MQ Connection, MQ clients need the location of this file, which is provided as configuration. most of MQ errors comes either with incorrect CCDT files.

9. What Is Difference Between Dead Letter Queue And Backout Queue In Websphere Mq?
Answer: As we have seen that dead letter queue is used to store messages which are received for the nonexistent queue. On the other hand, the backout queue is an application-specific queue. If MQ client is not able to process message and ask for redelivery, the message is redelivered to the client with the incremented delivery count. Once this deliveryCountcrossed a configured threshold message is moved to back-out queue for later processing or error handling. In short if MQ Series are not able to deliver a message to the client after a preconfigured attempt, WMQ moves message to backout queue.

10. Detail about the architecture of the web sphere?
Answer:

Web Sphere is built on three main components they are:

Database
J2EE application server
A webserver
The databases which it supports are:
DB2
Oracle
Cloudscape
The application server is IBM WAS and the supported web servers are:

IBM server
Microsoft IIS
Sun web server

11. What is the difference between Web Server and Application Server?
Answer:
Webserver: A Web server handles the HTTP protocol. When the Web server receives an HTTP request, it responds with an HTTP response, such as sending back an HTML page. To process a request, a Web server may respond with a static HTML page or image, send a redirect, or delegate the dynamic response generation to some other program such as CGI scripts, JSPs (JavaServer Pages), servlets, ASPs (Active Server Pages), server-side JavaScripts, or some other server-side technology. Whatever their purpose, such server-side programs generate a response, most often in HTML, for viewing in a Web browser.
Application Server:
As for the application server, according to our definition, an application server exposes business logic to client applications through various protocols, possibly including HTTP. While a Web server mainly deals with sending HTML for display in a Web browser, an application server provides access to business logic for use by client application programs. The application program can use this logic just as it would call a method on an object

12. What version of Websphere software is required to install WebSphere clustering? How would you configure Websphere for clustering: list basic steps?
Answer: WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment is the software required to install a WebSphere cluster.
Install the base with Deployment Manager
Create profiles for Deployment Manager and each node in the cell using with the Profile Management Tool ensuring the nodes are federated.
Use the Deployment Manager’s Administration Console to create the cluster and set cluster settings as appropriate.
Create Windows Services or Startup scripts for Deployment Manager, Node manager and Severs to ensure restart when OS is rebooted.

13. What is the trace?
Answer: A trace is an informational record that is intended for service engineers or developers to use. As such, a trace record might be considerably more complex, verbose and detailed than a message entry.

14. How to configure global security?
Answer: open console and then select security option in the right side menu, and then select locals registry in the user registry, then enter the username, passwords. And again select global security then top option then provide the password, then save the configuration. And restart the deployment server and then login the console.

15. What is the difference between the web server and application server?
Answer: Application Server: takes care of Security, Transaction, Multithreading, Resource pooling, load balancing, clustering, performance, high availability, scalability, etc. Exposes business logic to client applications through various protocols, possibly including HTTP. Supports deployment of .war and .ear files Application server = web server + EJB container

16. Why use the bootstrap port number?
Answer: client applications use the bootstrap port to access WebSphere’s built-in object request broker (orb) to use enterprise java beans in applications installed on the application server. The java naming and directory interface service provider URL used by the client application needs to reference the bootstrap port to obtain an initial context for looking up EJB’s it wants to use. (For communicate two servers)

17. What Is Mq Server?
Answer: A Web Sphere MQ server is a queue manager that provides queuing services to one or more clients. All the Web Sphere MQ objects, for example, queues, exist only on the queue manager machine (the Web Sphere MQ server machine), and not on the client. A Web Sphere MQ server can also support local Web Sphere MQ Applications

18. What Is A Profile In Websphere Application Server?
Answer: When you install WebSphere application server, executable files and configurations files are separated. This allows you install the product once and create multiple sets of configurations which uses the same underlying core executables of the WebSphere application server installation. These are the profiles in the Websphere application server. As you know, there are many types of profiles and you can create multiple profiles.

19. Explain The Attribute Channel In Websphere Mq.?
Answer: A channel is a connection that is to establish a link between a sending channel and receiving channel. A channel has a sender channel at the local queue manager and receiver channel at the remote queue manager. These two channels consist of the same name and together make one channel.
The CHANNEL attribute is used with WebSphere MQ applications to specify the channels for receiving and sending messages in a file that defines sender and receiver channels.

20. What Is Websphere Plug-in For Web Server And Where Do I Need To Install The Plug-in?
Answer: It is common to practice to have web and app servers on different machines. WebSphere provides a plug-in which enables the webserver to talk to the application server, this is known as web server plug-in. Web server plug-in will have a configuration file named plugin-config.xml which will have references to all the servers, clusters, applications, virtual hosts of the Websphere application server. You can generate this configuration file from the administration console, servers web servers. Select a web server and click generate a plugin configuration file and then propagate the plugin. This plug-in needs to be installed on the webserver machine

21. What Is Virtual Host In Websphere Application Server?
Answer: Virtual host is a configuration, not a physical one. A configuration that lets a single machine resemble multiple host machines. Each virtual host has a logical name and a list of one or more DNS host aliases by which it is known. By default, we will have a default_house and admin_host virtual hosts defined in the WebSphere application server.

22. How To Implement Jdbc-odbc Bridge Driver (type 1) In Websphere?
Answer: If you use JDBC type (I) driver you won’t need to add any driver in Websphere. you simply created DSN and use it locally, same we use java class if you use Type(2) and Type(4) so first go to admin console then go to the connection, then add driver there fill other info like conn. size, name pass, max conn. and connect it to your applications.

23. What is the difference between Application Server and Portal Server?
Answer: Application servers extend the ability of a Web server to handle Web application requests, and enables a server to generate a dynamic, customized response to a client request. A portal server extends the application server by providing a portlet container that can run portlets and create portal a website that provides users with a single point of access to Web-based resources by aggregating those resources in one place.

24. What is local rendering and remote rendering?
Answer: The web content management portlets can be rendered local or remotely. A local rendering portlet displays content on the same portal as the instance where the web content manager is installed. A remote rendering portlet displays Web content on a different portal server than the instance where Web Content Manager is installed.

25. What are the different phases of the portlet life cycle?
Answer:

Portlet life cycle has the following phases

Initialization(init method)
Process action
Process event
Resource serving
Render
Destroy
26. What can you do with XML access scripts?
Answer: Xml access is command-line utility used for exporting and importing portal configurations. It can be used for backing up the configuration of certain environments, for loading new configurations (for new portlets or pages, for example), or for updating existing portlets when a new WAR file is provided by the development. There are few samples C:IBMWebSpherePortalServerdocxml-sample

27. What are workflows?
Answer: A workflow is a sequence of steps that are followed in creating approved content. In WebSphere Portal, A workflow contains one or more stages. Every stage contains one or more actions, the following are different Workflow actions available in WebSphere Publish, Expire, Email, Scheduled Move, Custom Actions.

28. What is the purpose of XMLAccess configuration file Export.xml & ExportRelease.xml? What is the difference & When will you use one over the other?
Answer: Export.xml exports the complete portal configuration and useful when transferring configurations between development installations.
ExportRelease.xml exports the complete portal configuration from the release domain as required by the portal ReleaseBuilder tool and useful when transferring different release configurations between staging and production environments.

29. List me the steps involved in building a release in WebSphere Portal?
Answer:
If you have a completely new installation of the staging server and the production server:
Install the staging server, then install the production server.
Develop a release on the staging server.
Build the release on the staging server.
Empty portal contents on the production server by running the WPSconfig.sh|bat action-empty-portal task.
Import that releases onto the production server. Refer to Transferring a complete configuration for information.
If you already have a production server without a staging system:
Export the release of your production server.
Install an empty staging server using one of the following two methods:
Install the staging server with the flag -W emptyPortal.active=True.
After installing and configuring the staging server, run the WPSconfig.sh|bat action-empty-portal task.
Import the production release onto the staging server. Refer to Transferring a complete configuration for information.
Develop and build a new release on the staging server.
Export that new release from the staging server.
Use ReleaseBuilder to generate the differential between the two releases.
Import the differential onto the production server.

30. What is an Application group and why would I want to use it?
Answer: Application groups is a concept that allows you to define user groups within the database user registry with members (users or groups) contained in the LDAP user registry you configured.
The benefit of application groups is that you can create Groups that are only used in WebSphere Portal particularly in scenarios where there is Read-only LDAP or special group set up specific to the portal.

31. What portal resources can’t be separated for the virtual portal?
Answer:

Themes and skins.
Vault segments and vault slots.
Supported clients and markups.
Composite applications and templates.
Policies.
32. How do you enable temporary and extended trace logging for WebSphere Portal?
Answer: Temporary traces can be set for a temporary period by using the administration portlet Enable Tracing or the IBM WebSphere Application Server administrative console and also using the Enable Tracing portlet in the portal administration page.
To enable extended trace settings for a longer period of time, that is, for more than one session, switch them on in the WebSphere Application Server configuration, save the updates and restart the portal server.

33. What are the different states of the syndication process?
Answer:
Idle: No syndication is occurring.
Pending: A request has been made to the syndicator, but it has yet to initiate a request to the syndication application.
Queued: The syndicator has sent a request to the syndication application, but syndication is not yet active.
Active: Syndication is occurring between the syndicator and subscriber.
Disabled: Syndication is currently disabled.

34. State some of the features present in the web sphere?
Answer:
Some of the features which are present in the web sphere are:

Order management
Web sphere commerce accelerator
Analytical and business intelligence
Open standards such as Java, EJB, etc
Web sphere commerce payments and customer care, etc
35. Explain the various Administrator benefits using Web sphere?
Answer: Web sphere almost reduces the work of the server administrator as he can manage the load on servers efficiently without any hassles. It also gives him the flexibility to divide the load and applications among different server farms. He can also predict the incoming load on servers. Email alerts, restart options, memory leak detection, etc.

36. Explain the attribute CHANNEL in web sphere MQ?
Answer: CHANNEL specifies the name of the server connection channel. Generally, this is the Web Sphere MQ network abstraction. The default standard used by CHANNEL is SVRCONN which is the server connection channel. This server is generally used to communicate to the queue manager by the client.

37. What is JDBC?
Answer: JDBC technology is an API (included in both J2SE and J2EE releases) that provides cross-DBMS connectivity to a wide range of SQL databases and access to other tabular data sources, such as spreadsheets or flat files. With a JDBC technology-enabled driver, you can connect all corporate data even in a heterogeneous environment.

38. What is the WebSphere Application Server Console and what is its role? What is the default URL and port for accessing it?
Answer: The administrative console is a browser-based interface that allows you to configure application server settings, deploy and manage applications, and perform additional tasks that are not included in the HTTP Server Administration interface. It used to be a Java application, however, to be firewall safe it was made into a web-based application.
It runs on the default install port 9060 e.g

39. What is the master repository?
Answer: deployment manager contains the MASTER configuration and application files. All updates to the configuration files should go through the deployment manager.

40. What are difference b/w dmgr and other profiles?
Answer:

dmgr app custom- it’s used for administration
the admin console is there plain node purpose of remaining profiles initially one app server there empty node it supports the distributed work independently environment. Put applications it is not included app server the admin console is there work independently do not put applications
41. Explain Portal architecture.
Answer: The core implementation of the portal is UI, hosted by a Portal server. The HTTP requests, HTML responses, and returning appropriate portal pages are handled by the Portal UI. Enterprise Web application also can be handled by the Portal Server.
The portal architecture has the following:
Automaton Server: This server performs the management of job scheduling and implementation of a portal. It accesses all remote crawlers and profile services retrieved and stored from a remote database.
Image Server: This server hosts images and other web page content used by web services and a portal. With this configuration, large static files are to be sent directly to the browser without portal server impacts.
Search Server: This server indexes and searches all the information, applications, communities, documents, web sites through the portal.
Collaboration Server: Web content publication and management for portals and web applications are supported by this server. Its functionality can be accessed by a remote web service through Enterprise Web Development kit.
Content Server: Publication and management of web content for portals and web applications along with form-based publishing, branding, templates, content expiration are allowed by this server.
Authentication Server: This server handles the portal authentication for users and remote services can be accessed through EDK.
Remote Servers: Web services written using the EDK are hosted by remote servers. The servers can be in different countries, on different platforms and domains.

42. List me the steps involved in building a release in WebSphere Portal?
Answer: If you have a completely new installation of the staging server and the production server:
Install the staging server, then install the production server.
Develop a release on the staging server.
Build the release on the staging server.
Empty portal contents on the production server by running the WPSconfig.sh|bat action-empty-portal task.
Import that releases onto the production server. Refer to Transferring a complete configuration for information.
If you already have a production server without a staging system:
Export the release of your production server.
Install an empty staging server using one of the following two methods:
Install the staging server with the flag -W empty Portal.active=True.
After installing and configuring the staging server, run the WPSconfig.sh|bat action-empty-portal task.
Import the production release onto the staging server. Refer to Transferring a complete configuration for information.
Develop and build a new release on the staging server.
Export that new release from the staging server.
Use ReleaseBuilder to generate the differential between the two releases.
Import the differential onto the production server.

43. What are the advantages of the MQ?
Answer:
1. Integration.
2. Asynchrony
3. Assured Delivery
4. Scalability.

44. what is a Message and what does it contain?
Answer: A message is a string of bytes that is meaningful to the applications that use it. Messages are used to transfer information from one application program to another (or between different parts of the same application). The applications can be running on the same platform, or on different platforms.
WebSphere MQ messages have two parts:
1. The application data. The content and structure of the application data are defined by the application programs that use it.
2. A message descriptor. The message descriptor identifies the message and contains additional control information, such as the type of message and the priority assigned to the message by the sending application. WebSphere MQ defines the format of the message descriptor.

45. Mention the Different Types of MQ Queues?
Answer:
There are four types of Queues Available in Web sphere MQ –
Local queue object: A local queue object identifies a local queue belonging to the queue manager to which the application is connected. All queues are local queues in the sense that each queue belongs to a queue manager and, for that queue manager; the queue is a local queue.
Remote queue object: A remote queue object identifies a queue belonging to another queue manager. This queue must be defined as a local queue to that queue manager. The information you specify when you define a remote queue object allows the local queue manager to find the remote queue manager so that any messages destined for the remote queue go to the correct queue manager.
Alias queue object An alias queue allows applications to access a queue by referring to it indirectly in MQI calls. When an alias queue name is used in an MQI call, the name is resolved to the name of either a local or a remote queue at run time. This allows you to change the queues that applications use without changing the application in any way; you merely change the alias queue definition to reflect the name of the new queue to which the alias resolves. An alias queue is not a queue, but an object that you can use to access another queue.
Model queue object A model queue defines a set of queue attributes that are used as a template for creating a dynamic queue.

46. What are the channel and mention different types of channels in MQ?
Answer: Channels are objects that provide a communication path from one queue manager to another. Channels are used in distributed queuing to move messages from one queue manager to another.

They shield applications from the underlying communications protocols.

The queue managers might exist on the same, or different, platforms.
Different types of Channels:

1. Sender-Receiver Channels
2. Requester-Server Channels
3. Client Connection channels
4. Server Connection Channels.
5. Cluster Sender.
6. Cluster Receiver Channels

47. How can we write the MQSC commands that have too many parameters?
Answer: For commands that have too many parameters to fit on one line, use continuation characters to indicate that a command is continued on the following line:
1. A minus sign ( ) indicates that the command is to be continued from the start of _ the following line.
2. A plus sign (+) indicates that the command is to be continued from the first nonblank character on the following line.

48. What is the Different Logging Methods available?
Answer: There are two different types available:
1. Circular: The circular logging is used for restart recovery. It is the default logging method. Circular is used in Development and Testing Queues. Circular logging keeps all restart Data in a ring of log files. Logging fills the first file in the ring, then moves on to the and so on, until all the files are full. It then goes back to the first file in the ring and starts This continues as long as the product is in use, and has the advantage that you never run out of log files.
2. Linear: Linear logging gives you both restart recovery and media recovery. It is used in Production. Linear logging keeps the log data in a continuous Sequence of files. Space is not reused, so you can always retrieve any record logged from the time that the queue manager was created. As disk space is finite, you might have to think about some form of archiving. It is an administrative task to manage your disk space for the log, reusing Or extending the existing space as necessary.

49. What is Channel initiators and Listeners?
Answer: A channel initiator acts as a trigger monitor for sender channels, because a transmission queue may be defined as a triggered queue. When a message arrives on a transmission queue that satisfies the triggering criteria for that queue, a message is sent to the initiation queue, triggering the channel initiator to start the
appropriate sender channel. You can also start-server channels in this way if you specified the connection name of the partner in the channel definition. This means that channels can be started automatically, based upon messages arriving on the appropriate transmission queue.
You need a channel listener program to start receiving (responder) MCAs. Responder MCAs are started in response to a startup request from the caller MCA; the channel listener detects incoming network requests and starts the associated channel.

50. How many no Full Repository Queue Managers are required for creating a cluster. What is the difference between full and partial repositories?
Answer: In each cluster, you must select at least one, preferably two, or possibly more of the queue managers to hold full repositories. A cluster can work quite adequately with only one full repository but using two improves availability. Every cluster has at least one (preferably two) queue managers holding full repositories of information about the queue managers, queues, and channels in a cluster. These repositories also contain requests from the other queue managers in the cluster for updates to the information. The other queue managers each hold a partial repository, containing information about the subset of queues and queue managers with which they need to communicate.

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