Porting a J2EE Application from J2EE Engine 6.20 to 7.0 

Use

To deploy a J2EE application on J2EE Engine 7.0, the application’s EAR file must contain:

●      All the application components

●      application.xml, which must be J2EE 1.2 or 1.3 compliant

●      application-j2ee-engine.xml – a J2EE Engine-specific deployment descriptor, which contains the references to external libraries and services, specifies the application failover, and so on.

The application components are packed in WAR, JAR, or RAR files, and the deployment descriptors are located in a META-INF directory in the EAR file.

To port a J2EE application that runs on J2EE Engine 6.20, you have to redeploy it on J2EE Engine 7.0.

You can use the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio, the Deploy Tool, the Visual Administrator, or the Console Administrator to redeploy your applications.

The applications running on J2EE Engine 6.20 are J2EE 1.2 compatible. However, if they have some additional deployment properties, these properties are specified in the standard application.xml. These applications do not have application-j2ee-engine.xml.

Integration

Using the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio

If you use the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio to assemble your application and to deploy it on J2EE Engine 7.0, the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio will create the necessary J2EE compliant deployment descriptors, compose an SDA file, and it will also deploy the application through the SDM.

Using the Deploy Tool

If your application contains specific settings in application.xml, then the background converter will replace the existing application.xml with a J2EE 1.2 compatible application.xml, and will create the application-j2ee-engine.xml in which it will store the additional deployment properties. If the application does not contain specific deployment properties, the application will be deployed as is, that is, the converter will not modify the existing application.xml.

The converter may also modify the WAR and JAR files that the EAR file contains. For more information, see Web Components and EJB Components.

Using the Visual Administrator or the Console Administrator

If you want to use the Visual Administrator or the shell commands to redeploy your applications, you must first convert the applications’ EAR files with the Converter Tool.

Which Option Should You Use?

●      Use the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio and the SDM in the following cases:

○       If the source files of the application are available, you can import them into the relevant project types in the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio and then build the archive files. This scenario enables you to change the code of the application if necessary, as well as to build an application archive, which can be deployed using the SDM.

You can convert the application using the Converter Tool to see what information you should include in the additional deployment descriptors. Then you can edit the generated descriptors in the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio.

○       If your application’s EAR file contains the descriptors required to deploy it with the SDM (sda-dd.xml), you can use the SDM to deploy it on the J2EE Engine 7.0. The EAR is automatically converted at deployment time.

When the application is converted using the SDM, the newly generated descriptors are used during deployment only and are not stored in the file system. You cannot reuse the converted application later. Therefore, we recommend that you convert the application using the Converter Tool first, and then deploy it using the SDM.

●      Using the Deploy Tool is more convenient in the following cases:

○       If only the EAR of the application is available and it does not contain the sda-dd.xml, use the Deploy Tool to convert and deploy the application on the J2EE Engine. Note that once the application EAR has been converted, it is no longer compatible with 6.20.