Using the Management Console, you can import applications into EAServer, or export applications from EAServer 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.
Highlight the top-level Applications folder, right-click, and select Deploy.
In the Deploy wizard:
Enter the name of the archive file, or click Browse and select the file.
Enter a name for the application module, and specify whether to overwrite an existing module with the same name.
Specify whether to perform validation of the deployment descriptor. EAServer performs validation by default in accord with the EJB specification. However, disabling validation may allow you to deploy archives that have invalid XML but are otherwise correctly packaged.
Select the server in which to install the module, or select not to install the module in a server.
If the archive file does not include an EAServer configuration file in the META-INF directory, the system generates one automatically. To save a copy of the archive with the automatically-generated configuration file, enter the location.
Select Finish to deploy the application.
To export an application, create an export configuration that includes the application—see Chapter 7, “Exporting Server Modules.”
Importing an application