Application classloaders

To find and load classes for an application, WAS uses one or more application classloaders that load elements of enterprise applications running in the server.

The application elements can be Web modules, EJB modules, resource adapters, and dependency JAR files. Application classloaders follow J2EE class loading rules to load classes and JAR files from an enterprise application. The number of application classloaders varies depending on your classloader policy settings. For more information, see Classloader policies.

The WebSphere run-time enables you to associate a shared library classpath with an application. For more information, see the Administer shared libraries topic in Administration.