A system application is a J2EE enterprise application that is central to a WebSphere Application Server product.
Examples of system applications include isclite, managementEJB and filetransfer.
Because a system application is an important part of a WebSphere Application Server product, a system application is deployed when the product is installed and is updated only through a product fix or upgrade. For some system applications, such as filetransfer, users cannot change the metadata for the system application, unless the metadata assigns users and groups for security purposes. For these applications, non-security related metadata such as its J2EE bindings or J2EE extensions must be updated through a product fix or upgrade.
System applications are not shown in the list of installed applications on the console Enterprise Applications page, or through wsadmin and Java application programming interfaces, to prevent users from accidentally stopping, updating or removing the system applications.
Note that J2EE Samples are not system applications even though they are
provided as part of a WebSphere Application Server product. Similarly, applications
that support changes to their metadata are not system applications.