Java Enterprise in a Nutshell, Third Edition

Chapter 2. Application Assembly and Deployment

In any enterprise framework, it’s important to understand not just the APIs and tools that are needed to develop application code but also the model that the framework uses for assembling and deploying the components of applications. Assembly of an application or component is the process of collecting all of the elements required (source code, datafiles, and configuration files) into a structured format that can be deployed to the server environment. Deploying a component or application is the process of actually installing the runnable code in the runtime environment, which involves making the code available to the server and resolving resource references in the assembly with the resources actually available on the server.

Assembly and deployment are usually considered separate activities for several reasons. Perhaps most importantly, assembly is focused on the nature of the application itself while deployment is focused on the integration of the application with a specific runtime environment. Assembly of code, therefore, is more easily standardized within a given enterprise framework. Archive structures and configuration file formats can be specified in a generic way, including references to external resources like databases and messaging services. Deployment, on the other hand, is more context-dependent. The type and configuration of the runtime environment are going to determine how each deployment will be carried out. The assembly ...