Installing Engineering Lifecycle Management on the file system

File system installation deploys Engineering Lifecycle Management applications on-premises using the IBM Installation Manager or command-line interface in the express or custom mode.

Express mode: A simplified version of the setup in which the installer uses the default Apache Derby database and the WebSphere Liberty server. Express mode is suitable for trial or demo environment.
Custom mode: A full version of the setup that allows administrators to choose the database, server, and other configurations as per your requirements. You can also set up distributed deployments by using custom installation mode.

File system installation provides more flexibility to the administrators to choose the server and deployment topologies.IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management is a three-tier architecture that requires the installation of database, application server, and rich or web client to connect to the server.