Setting up a proof of concept

Set up a proof of concept environment to determine and validate the direction of your IBM^® WebSphere^® Portal Express deployment. Examine and test the functions and features to decide how you can best use WebSphere Portal Express to accomplish your business goals.

1. Preparing your Windows machine
   This section includes information for setting up your operating system for IBM WebSphere Portal Express. Other components might require additional steps; see the product documentation for the specific components you want to install for information.
2. Installing DB2
   This section provides information on how to install DB2 for use with WebSphere Portal Express.
3. Creating local databases
   When you use a local DB2 server, use this task to automatically create the required databases as a remote database on the local system.
4. Create users
   This section provides information on setting up users for DB2 to work with WebSphere Portal Express.
5. Converting the evaluation license
   If you initially installed WebSphere Portal Express using the evaluation license and then purchased the product, you can convert the installed evaluation license to a production license. You can do this at any time, before or after the evaluation license expires.
6. Installing WebSphere Portal Express on Windows
   IBM WebSphere Portal Express is installed as a single component, complete with an integrated database for storing information. This allows you to get WebSphere Portal Express up and running quickly for a proof of concept phase where you can immediately begin building and working with it. You can also expand your environment to include high availability failover, a more robust database, and LDAP-based authentication.
7. Configure WebSphere Portal Express to use DB2
   This section provides information on how to manually transfer data to the DB2 database you have installed and set up. Follow these steps to transfer WebSphere Portal Express, and DB2 Content Manager databases to DB2.
8. Verifying database connections
   After WebSphere Portal Express is configured to work with your database, test the database connection to ensure that it operates correctly.
9. Uninstalling a proof-of-concept on Windows
   You can uninstall IBM WebSphere Portal Express only or both WebSphere Portal Express and IBM WebSphere Application Server using either the graphical user interface, console mode, or silent uninstallation program.