Application Assembly Tool

Use the Application Assembly Tool (AAT) to assemble Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) applications for WAS applications. Application assembly is the process of creating an enterprise archive (EAR) file that contains all of the files related to an application. Application assembly consists of these steps:

1. Create archive files that contain all of the files that belong to a specific application.
2. Configure the runtime behavior of the application.

Use the AAT to perform these tasks:

• Assemble EJB modules.
• Assemble Web Modules.
• Assemble Application Client Modules.
• Assemble resource adapter modules.
• Assemble or modify modules.
• Migrate application modules from J2EE 1.2 to J2EE 1.3.
• Verify the archive files.
• Generate code for deployment.

Note: To generate the code for deployment, the AAT calls the ejbdeploy script. You can run the ejbdeploy script separately to generate the deployment descriptor for your application. For more information, see Enterpise bean deploy tool.

An application can consist of a single enterprise archive (EAR) or Web application (WAR) file, or multiple archive files can be bundled into an EAR file if the application has many components. Each bundled entity within the EAR file is called a module. All of the archive files and modules are stored in the standard JAR file format.

These are the types of archives that you can package in an EAR file:

• Enterprise bean (JAR) files (EJB modules)
• Web application (WAR) files (Web modules)
• Application client (JAR) files (client modules)
• Resource adapter (RAR) files (resource adapter modules)

An archive file can contain any of these types of files:

• HTML files
• Servlet class files
• JavaServer Pages (JSP) files
• Enterprise bean class files
• Application client class files
• Image files

The archive file also includes an XML file called a deployment descriptor. The deployment descriptor lists the contents and characteristics of the module and contains instructions for how the module is deployed in the runtime environment. To generate the deployment code and validate archive files for enterprise beans, the AAT invokes the Enterprise Bean Deployment Tool. For container-managed persistence (CMP) entity beans, the Enterprise Bean Deployment Tool can also generate a map and schema document, and a Data Definition Language (DDL) file containing SQL code for creating a database table.

Note: If you use the AAT to create application client modules, use the Application Client Resource Configuration Tool to define references to resources (other than enterprise beans) on the machine where the application client resides.