Resources used to test and publish on your server

To test and publish on your server, you need to define one or more of the following resources:

If a server has server configuration files, in most situations, these server configuration files are created for you automatically and contained in a server project.

Server Project

A server project contains servers and server configuration files. When a server project is created automatically by the workbench, the name given to the project is Servers and is available in the Project Explorer view under the Other Projects folder.

Server

A server identifies where you want to test or publish your application. A server points to a specific runtime environment such as a local test environment, a full installation of a server, or a server on another machine. A server contains the logic of how to publish to the server; and what application projects and configurations to run.

On the workbench, when the metadata of the server is automatically created, it is stored in a serverName.server file, where serverName is the name assigned to the server. For details on the metadata of the server, refer to the Displaying or hiding the metadata of the server link at the bottom of this topic.

Types of servers

The server tools support the following types of servers:

Server configurations

Server configurations are files that contains information that is required to set up and publish to a server. For example, these files may include information about what port to run the server, security preferences and other vendor-specific server settings.

For WebSphere Application Server v5.1, the server configuration files may include information about which port to run on, which data sources or MIME types are supported.

For WebSphere Application Server v6.x, the development environment no longer has the server configuration in the workspace. Server-specific configurations are set in the WebSphere Administrative Console. The configuration settings that are specific to an enterprise application can be set using the WebSphere Enhanced EAR editor. The WebSphere Enhanced EAR editor is the Deployment page in the Application Deployment Descriptor editor. Use the WebSphere Enhanced EAR editor to configure the following configurations that are specific to an enterprise application:
  • Data Sources
  • Resource adapters and connection factories, such as, J2EE Connector (J2C)
  • Substitution Variables
  • Authentications, such as, Java™ Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS)
  • Shared Libraries
  • Virtual Hosts
  • Class loader policies

Installed Server Runtime Environment

You need to define the runtime environment of an application server for compiling your application. A server contains a reference to an installed server runtime environment it is currently using. For details on how to define an installed server runtime environment, refer to the Defining the installed server runtime environments link at the bottom of this topic.

Relationship between the resources

For each server, you can specify the server configuration and installed server runtime environment that should be used for that server. A server can only point to one or no server configuration. However, a server configuration can be pointed from one or more servers.

A relationship between a server configuration and an application project, for example an EAR project, is created when a project is added to the server configuration. A server can point to one or more projects. A project can be pointed from one or more server configurations.

1 Not available in WebSphere Application Server Toolkit V6.1.x, but available in products such as Rational® Application Developer V7.0.x or Rational Software Architect V7.0.x

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