Chapter 9: Importing and Exporting Application Components

Deploying J2EE applications

You can export applications from EAServer Manager to deploy them on another server. EAServer supports two archive formats for applications:

J2EE enterprise archive (EAR) The EAR format is the standard for servers that support J2EE. This format allows portability to other vendor’s J2EE servers, but does not support component types other than EJB or container-specific information such as:
- Role mappings
- Resource references
- EJB references to components that are not installed with the EAR file, or when more than one bean uses the same home and remote interfaces. It is impossible to infer EJB references if more than one bean uses the home and remote interfaces specified by the reference properties in the deployment descriptor. After importing an EJB-JAR file that contains multiple beans that use the same home and remote interfaces, view the EJB Reference properties to verify that the correct bean is invoked.
- Environment properties
You can optionally include EAServer XML configuration files to preserve the configuration of these properties, as described in “Using EAServer configuration files in J2EE archives”.
EAServer JAR For exporting between EAServer 3.6 or later servers. This format, while proprietary, preserves all information in the application and supports component types other than EJB. When importing, EJB references, resource references, and role mappings are preserved. You must ensure that the referenced items are in place before you run the imported application.

Consider synchronization instead of archives If you are deploying between EAServer installations, you may find synchronization easier than exporting and importing archives. Synchronization replicates an application directly between servers. See Chapter 6, “Clusters and Synchronization”for more information.

Exporting an application

Expand the top-level Applications folder.
Highlight the application to export. If you are exporting an EAR file, choose File | Export | J2EE EAR. If you are exporting an EAServer JAR, choose File | Export | EAServer JAR.
In the Export wizard:
1. Enter the name of the EAR or JAR file to create including the full directory path and the .ear or .jar extension.
2. If exporting in EAR format, optionally deselect the Export with EAServer XML Configuration File option if you do not want the archive to include an EAServer XML configuration file.
Click Next. EAServer Manager creates the EAR or JAR file, displaying status messages in the Export wizard.

Importing an application

Highlight the top-level Applications folder. If you are importing an EAR file, choose File | Deploy | J2EE EAR. Otherwise, choose File | Deploy | EAServer JAR.
Enter the path to the EAR or JAR file.
If importing an EAR file, choose a deployment strategy. Table 9-1 describes the deployment strategy options.
If importing an EAR file, configure the deployment options:
- Prompt before overwriting existing objects.
- Automatically generate EJB stubs and skeletons.
- Use interoperable naming, which configures interoperable naming URLs for the EJB Reference properties, as described in “Intervendor EJB interoperability” in the EAServer Programmer’s Guide. Select this option when your EJBs have EJB references that link to another vendor's EJB 2.0 server and you need to use the RMI/IIOP protocol for the connection.
- Use JAR File Package Naming. If selected, the new package name will match the EJB-JAR file name. Otherwise the new package name matches the display-name element in the deployment descriptor.
When you are deploying an EAR or EJB-JAR file containing a sybase-easerver-config.xml file, which was previously exported from EAServer, do not use the JAR File Naming option. When exporting packages to a J2EE archive file, EAServer optionally creates a sybase-easerver-config.xml file that includes configuration information based on the package names. If you deploy a package or an application that contains packages with the JAR File Naming option, EAServer renames the packages. When the package names do not match the names in the sybase-easerver-config.xml file, deployment fails.
Click Next. The Deploy wizard reads the EAR or JAR file and creates a new application. Any errors display in the status window. Review the status information, then click Close.

What is created during import

When you import an EAServer JAR, the Deploy wizard creates an application identical to the original.

When you import an EAR, the Deploy wizard creates:

An application with the same name as the display name in the EAR file’s XML descriptor. If there is no display name, the new application has the same name as the EAR file.
For each EJB-JAR file in the EAR, a package with the same name as the EJB-JAR display name, or the name of the EJB-JAR file if there is no display name.
For each bean in an EJB-JAR file, an EJB component with the same name as the ejb-name element in the EJB-JAR deployment descriptor.

Home names for imported EJB components When importing from EAR or EJB-JAR files, EAServer sets an imported bean’s home name to the EAServer default, package/component, where package is the EAServer Manager package name, and component is the EAServer Manager component name.
For each WAR file in the EAR, a Web application with the same name as the display name in the WAR file’s XML descriptor. If there is no display name, the new Web application has the same name as the WAR file.
For each servlet defined in a WAR file, a Web application component with the same name as the servlet-name element in the Web application deployment descriptor.

If the EAR file did not contain EAServer XML configuration files, you may need to configure the following settings in the Component or Web Application Properties dialog boxes before running EJBs, servlets, or JSPs:

Role mappings
Resource references
EJB references (to components that are not installed with the EAR file)
Environment properties
Resource environment references

Other settings have been configured by the Deploy wizard.

Use the status dialog as a to-do list In the deployment status dialog box, EAServer Manager displays warnings for each setting that requires further attention before you run the application. You can copy and paste this text to a text editor to use as a to-do list.