2.4.3 Application data files

The master repository is also used to store the application binaries (EAR files) and deployment descriptors. This allows modified deployment descriptors to be kept in the repository, and allows system administrators to make application updates more automatic.

The <profile_home>/config directory of the master repository contains the following directory structure used to hold application binaries and deployment settings:

This directory contains a subdirectory for each application deployed in the cell. The names of the directories match the names of the deployed applications.

The name of the deployed application does not have to match the name of the original EAR file used to install it. Any name can be chosen when deploying a new application, as long as the name is unique across all applications in the cell.

Each application's directory in the master repository contains the following:

A copy of the original EAR, called <appname>.ear, which does not contain any of the bindings specified during the installation of the application

A deployments directory, which contains a single <appname> directory used to contain the deployed application configuration

The deployment directory of each application contains the following:

deployment.xml

This file contains configuration data for the application deployment, including the allocation of application modules to appservers, and the module startup order.

META-INF/

This directory contains the following:

application.xml

J2EE standard application deployment descriptor

ibm-application-bnd.xmi

IBM WebSphere-specific application bindings

ibm-application-ext.xmi

IBM WebSphere-specific application extensions

was.policy

Application-specific Java 2 security configuration

This file is optional. If not present, then the policy files defined at the node level will apply for the application.

The deployment descriptors stored in the repository contain the bindings chosen during application installation.

The subdirectories for all application modules (WARs and EJB JARs) are contained in the was.policy along with each module's deployment descriptors.

The subdirectories for each module do not contain application binaries (JARs, classes, and JSPs), only deployment descriptors and other configuration files.