When portlets contain references to other J2EE modules, such as EJBs or utility JAR files, there are special considerations for testing and deploying the portlets to remote WebSphere® Portal servers.
The Rational® Software Development Platform has very comprehensive J2EE application deployment tooling. When a dynamic web project contains references to other J2EE modules, such as EJBs or utility JAR files, during testing and deploying to WebSphere Application Server, the referenced modules are packaged into the same EAR file, which contains the dynamic web module. Thus, the referenced modules are automatically deployed with the web module.
But when portlets containing references to J2EE modules are deployed to remote servers, the portlet project is assembled in a WAR file and deployed to the server using XMLAccess, the WebSphere Portal specific deployment protocol. A consequence of this is that the referenced J2EE modules are not automatically deployed to the server. For this reason, these modules and any utility jars referenced by the portlet WAR have to be manually deployed to the remote server separate from the portlet deployment.
Testing on a remote WebSphere Portal server
This procedure is similar to those for deploying an EJB project EAR to a WebSphere Application Server. For further information on how to deploy J2EE-based modules, dependent utility JAR files, or data sources to a remote server, refer to the WebSphere Application Server Infocenter.
Testing on a local WebSphere Portal test environment
For more information on working with J2EE modules and portlets in your local test environment, refer to Referring to other projects