The WebLogic Server Deployment Tools

As a Java developer learning to build J2EE applications, you will encounter your most tedious nonprogramming tasks in the realm of assembling, packaging, and deploying your J2EE components and applications to WebLogic Server.

All WebLogic Server applications and components need to conform to the J2EE specification for their assembly and packaging tasks. However, the way an application is deployed is governed by the deployment requirements of WebLogic Server because WebLogic-specific runtime configurations may need to be specified, such as HTTP session parameters, resource references, security role assignments, and container attributes. The J2EE specification does not govern how a J2EE application is deployed, only how it is assembled and packaged.

WebLogic Server provides four tools that can be leveraged to ensure your J2EE modules or applications are assembled and deployed in a J2EE- and WebLogic Server “compliant manner. These tools are described in the following sections.

The WebLogic Builder

The WebLogic Builder tool is a new addition to the WebLogic suite of deployment tools. It is a Java-based graphical application that you can use to

• Assemble a J2EE component or application for deployment

• Create and edit a J2EE component or application deployment descriptors

• Compile and validate the deployment descriptors

• Deploy a J2EE module or application to WebLogic Server

The EJBGen Utility

The EJBGen utility is a command-line Enterprise Java Beans 2.0 code generator. If you have annotated your Bean class file with javadoc tags, you can use the EJBGen tool to generate the Remote and Home classes as well as the deployment descriptor files for an EJB application.

The weblogic.Deployer Utility

The weblogic.Deployer utility is a command-line deployment utility that can be used to deploy J2EE modules and applications to WebLogic Server by directly interfacing with the WebLogic Server deployment API. If you intend to automate your deployment process, you can easily embed the weblogic.Deployer utility commands inside a batch or shell script, which can then be invoked from the command line.

Note

The weblogic.Deployer utility replaces the weblogic.deploy utility found in the previous version of WebLogic Server.

The WebLogic Server Administration Console

The Administration Console provides the same deployment functionality as the WebLogic Builder and weblogic.Deployer utility, but through a Web browser. However, there is one limitation of using the Administration Console: The file system where the EAR, WAR, JAR, or RAR files reside must be accessible to the WebLogic Server machine.