How to install WebSphere Application Server 8.0 Beta

It seems that there are quite a few new features in Java EE 5 and Java EE 6 and i wanted to start trying some of them. So i decided to install WebSphere Application Server 8 -Beta, which implements Java EE 6, in addition to many new IBM specific features. These are the steps that i used to install WAS 8 on my machine

• Download WAS 8.0 Beta installable from IBM WebSite.I had to download 3 .zip from IBM website


• After downloading the .zip file i did extract them in the same folder. I could see following folder structure
  
  


• After unzipping the files i tried searching for launchpad.exe/setup.exe in all the three folders but i could not find it, so it took me some time to figure out that the procedure for installing the WAS 8.0 is changed. Now we have to use the Installation Manager(Same component that we use for installing Rational Application Developer) for installing the product using GUI


• Since i use Rational Application Developer 8.0 on my machine i do have the installation manager for it. I decided to use the same installation manager. If you dont have the installation manager already on your machine, you can download it as part of WAS 8.0 installable


• After starting the IBM Installation Manager and on the first screen click on Install button
  
  


• Since the Installation Manager does not know about the location of your WAS 8 repository, it will open a screen like this, click on the Repository link
  
  


• It will open a Repository preference dialog box like this
  
  


• On this dialog box click "Add Repository" button, it will open a Add a Repository dialog box, use this to select the repository.config file that you unzipped from the WAS 8 installable like this and click Ok
  
  


• Once the new repository is configured Installation Manager will show you WebSphere Application Server 8.0 as installation package, select it and click on Next to start the installation wizard
  


• Go through the wizard and at the end select the packages that you want to install like this
  
  

The installation manager will take few minutes and once the installation is done it will show a dialog box for creating profile like this