Question : How is a websphere application 'supposed to be deployed'

Gotta a new job where we use websphere and DB2.

We have a custom application that we host that is a nightmare to deploy.

All the installations are the same, same db structure, same application versions etc.  Yet installation is a completely manual process.  Worse yet completely undocumented.  

From a 200 foot view, how should this application be deployed.  Right now we are extracting files in to directories.  

I want to use the applications/install application from within websphere.  
Then run a sql script to create the database
then maybe another script to populate it with starter data.

My question is what is the ideal way to deploy a db2 / Websphere application?  Better yet do you have an example of one, where I can show the installation instructions as to how it should be?

How to I tell the CEO this is how it should be done.  And that it should only take an hour, not days!!!!

P.S. we deploy about 3 of these a week!

Answer : How is a websphere application 'supposed to be deployed'

lets talk about application deployment and database deployment seperatly

for the database, what you suggest sounds ok. if you deploy very often, maybe you will prefer to have a database ready, and then just clone it each deployment, that might save you some time

for the application, as far as i remember, where I worked, the deployment of the application to websphere was just creating a webshpere application using an .ear file, which was pretty simple. besides deploying the ear file, there was a one time configuration of the database connection, connection pooling etc...