You can install WebSphere® Extended Deployment, including all three separate products, in various ways to enhance your application server environment. Depending on your existing environment and which product you install, the installation process includes certain features that might not be available in other installation scenarios.
You can install WebSphere Extended Deployment Compute Grid in an environment that contains existing installations of WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment and either WebSphere Virtual Enterprise, WebSphere eXtreme Scale, or both. During the installation process, the wizard detects and verifies the existing installations as part of the current process. As a result, the job scheduler is installed. If your environment contains WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment and Virtual Enterprise, you can add Compute Grid to the centralized installation manager repository, which you can later use to shorten the number of steps that are required to create and manage your remote environments.
When you install Compute Grid in environments in which WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment does not exist, the wizard does not provide the option to add the product to the centralized installation manager repository. However, you can add the product later by using the centralized installation manager repository tool. See Using the centralized installation manager repository tool to add products for more information.
Also, the middleware agent is installed on a node that is running other middleware servers when you install Compute Grid in other server environments. The middleware agent is a server process that is used to manage other middleware servers. See Middleware agent for more information.