A customized installation package (CIP) created with IBM® WebSphere® Installation Factory can contain a previously exported configuration archive of an existing profile to be bundled with an installation image, maintenance packages, user files, and scripts.
A configuration archive (CAR) file is an exported configuration file from an existing profile and contains all application server configuration data including security settings, resources, defined ports, and so on. A CAR captures the configuration of a profile for later restoration to another application server node. The only configuration archives that can be restored in a CIP are unaugmented standalone application server profiles. A CAR can only be restored into the same profile type in which it was exported.
The advantage of using a CAR is that all of this configuration, including any enterprise archive (EAR) files, can be reliably restored to many application server nodes. Importing a configuration archive also offers some performance advantages over creating a standalone application server in the normal way.
Use the AdminTask command scripting interface to create the configuration archive. See the topic "ConfigArchiveOperations command group for the AdminTask object" in the WebSphere Application Server, Version 7.0 Information Center for more information.
A CIP which includes a configuration archive can be used to install an exact replica of a model application serving environment with installed maintenance packages, configured profiles, and deployed applications. For this reason, the configuration archive support is one of the key customizations that make CIPs so powerful when creating large scale topologies.
If you are restoring a customized profile that uses messaging, you must also include a script to configure the service integration bus (SIB). The original SIB configuration is not portable and, therefore, is not included in the CIP.