A distributed server configuration can be created in one of three ways:

A distributed server configuration can be created in one of three ways:
 Create a deployment manager profile to define the deployment manager.
Then, create one or more custom node profiles. The nodes defined by each
custom profile can be federated into the cell managed by the deployment
manager during profile creation or later manually. The custom nodes can
exist on the deployment manager machine or on multiple separate machines.
Application servers can then be created using the administrative tools, for
example, the administrative console.
The method is useful when you will be creating multiple nodes, multiple
application servers on a node, or clusters. The process for creating and
federating each node is fairly quick and streamlined. Because servers created
using the application server profile are always named “server1”, this method
gives you more flexibility in server names.
 Create a deployment manager profile to define the deployment manager.
Then, create one or more application server profiles and federate these
profiles into the cell managed by the deployment manager. This process adds
both nodes and application servers into the cell. The application server
profiles can exist on the deployment manager machine or on multiple
separate machines.
This method is useful in development or small configurations. Creating an
application server profile gives you the option of having the sample
applications installed on the server. When you federate the server and node
to the cell, any installed applications can be carried into the cell with the
server

Create a cell profile. This actually creates two profiles, a deployment
manager profile and a federated application server profile. Both reside on the
same machine.
This is useful in a development or test environment. Creating a single profile
gives you a simple distributed system on a single server.