Performing application installs on a server that does not have internet connectivity used to be a difficult thing to do. You had to locate and download not only the main application, but any dependencies that would be needed to complete the install. Without an easy way to determine these dependencies, you could be stuck in an endless loop of attempting the install, getting an error, locating the necessary download for the missing files, and starting the process over again. Well, that can be a thing of the past now. The command line Web Platform Install allows you to setup an offline cache that contains not only the application but also any dependencies that are required to successfully install the application. Check out my full blog post about this very subject here:
Using Web Platform Installer command line tool to perform offline installs
~Terri Donahue of OrcsWeb