Setup a Portlet Development Environment With IBM Rational Application Developer 8

This is a walkthrough for setting up a portlet development environment With IBM Rational Application Developer (RAD) 8.

Step 1 - Verify you meet the System requirements for Rational Application Developer 8.
Reference: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=2042&uid=swg27019500

Step 2 - Download RAD 8 install package
Trial version can be found from http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/r/rad/?S_CMP=rnav

Step 3 - Install RAD 8
Lunch the IBM Installation Manager to install Rational Application Developer for WebSphere, in Features screen, select Portlet and Portal development tool. If you don't have a local portal server installed, make sure the "Tools for developing applications without a local server installation" option is selected, as shown in below.

Step 4 - Setup a Portal Server in RAD
1) From the RAD menu, Window -> Show View -> Servers
2) Right-click the server view and click New -> Server.
3) On the Define a New Server page, select WebSphere Portal Server
4) Follow the New Server wizard and provide the WebSphere Settings, WebSphere Portal Settings and Properties Publishing Settings.

Step 5 - Verify the setup
Right-click the Portal server in the server view then do a start and stop to verify the server setup.

Congratulations! Now you have set up a portlet development environment in RAD, and you are ready to start portlet development.