Application assembly and J2EE applications

Application assembly is the process of creating an enterprise archive (EAR) file containing all files related to an application, as well as an XML deployment descriptor for the application. This configuration and packaging prepares the application for deployment onto an application server.

EAR files are comprised of the following archives:

• Enterprise bean JAR files (known as EJB modules)

• Web archive (WAR) files (known as Web modules)

• Application client JAR files (known as client modules)

• Resource adapter archive (RAR) files (known as resource adapter modules)

Ensure that modules are contained in an EAR file so that they can be deployed onto the server. The exceptions are WAR modules, which you can deploy individually. Although WAR modules can contain regular JAR files, they cannot contain the other module types described previously.

The assembly process includes the following actions:

• Selecting all of the files to include in the module.

• Creating a deployment descriptor containing instructions for module deployment on the application server.

  As you configure properties using an assembly tool, the tool generates the deployment descriptor for you. While the Application Server Toolkit (AST), Rational Web Developer or Rational Application Developer graphical interface is recommended, you can also edit descriptors directly in your favorite XML editor.

• Packaging modules into a single EAR file, which contains one or more files in a compressed format.

Related tasks
Assembling applications

Related reference
Archive support in Version 6.0