I have a general, low priority, question about multiple deployment environments in BAW.

On a couple of occasions, I have had the need to create a second Case Manager enabled FileNet P8 instance on the same hardware. For CPE and ICN this meant  second WAS profiles, and new GCD and object store databases. 

For the BAW side of things, I installed a second full instance of BAW alongside the first (/opt/IBM/AppServer_1) and configured this BAW to talk to this second P8 instance (in both cases the CPE and ICN are external).

As a result there are two Deployment Managers, two nodeagents, and two "SingleClusterMember1"s. Also two sets of BAW databases and two full BAW configurations (when only the Case features are in use currently)

It was simple to install/configure and it works, but seems a little wasteful.

I've seen a number of references throughout the BAW documentation implying having multiple deployment environments. Commands often have a "-de" option - implying choosing between multiples. There's a web page for "Considerations for multiple deployment environments in the same cell". Looks quite complicated to set up from the documentation, and there are warnings about maintenance hassles.

So, my question: What is the preferred method of having multiple distinct BAW deployment environments on the same server? Is the second full install preferred over (somehow) configuring multiple deployment environments running under a single BAW install?

If the latter, are there any "best practice" documents or tips I can read?

(The obvious answer of installing the second P8 and BAW onto new servers is not an option because of licencing considerations.....)

Many thanks!

Generally, we don't recommend having multiple BAW servers on the same hardware.

That said, Multiple Deployment environments is a supported pattern.  It would allow a single WAS ND cell to share multiple BAW instances.
In your case, the only SHARED resource would be Dmgr compared to multiple WAS cells on same hardware.  You would still require separate Databases and object stores.  I would still use separate nodes.  Though a single CPE server can be used, as long as Object stores are separate.   Single DB server can be used as well, as long as Databases or schemas in Ora are separate.

Frankly, I am not sure if the same ICN can be used or not.   

Thanks for the reply Mikhail. Yes I read an online page about what you describe before I posted my question:

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/baw/23.x?topic=environments-isolating-deployment

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/baw/23.x?topic=topology-considerations-multiple-deployment-environments-in-same-cell

But the latter link seemed to discourage this with multiple caveats regarding maintenance and administration.

I think I'll not look at employing this concept and will persist with the "multi-full-install" idea, since it's simple and everything is fully isolated by default, and the only overhead is an extra DMGR (you yourself recommended separate nodeagents even in the "single-cell scenario).

Thanks again for the response.