Developing stand-alone thin client applications

Develop the application code, then assemble the code into a client application that you can deploy on a client machine.

Procedure

  • Get server objects and resources.

    A stand-alone client application can get suitable server objects and resources (like connection factories, JMS queues, and data sources) programmatically without using JNDI. Alternatively, a client application can use full JNDI support provided by the Thin Client for EJB.

  • Compile stand-alone thin client applications.
    To compile your client application, include the JAR files needed in the CLASSPATH setting for the javac command; for example, any extra JAR files for the client application's own classes, JAR files for IBM® Thin clients used, and JAR files for JDBC provider classes.

    For the stand-alone thin clients, the following JAR files are provided in the /runtimes/ directory of either an Application Client installation or Application Server installation:

    Table 1. JAR files for stand-alone thin clients . The product provides JAR files for stand-alone thin clients descriptions.
    JAR file Description
    com.ibm.jaxws.thinclient_8.5.0.jar IBM Thin Client for Java™ API for XML-based Web Services (JAX-WS). This file enables a Java SE client application to use the JAX-WS programming model to invoke web services that are hosted by the application server. You must use the endorsed APIs JAR file when starting Java because the Thin Client for JAX-WS requires APIs that are more current than what is available in JDKs to support JAX-WS 2.2 and JAXB 2.2 implementations.
    com.ibm.ws.ejb.thinclient_8.5.0.jar Thin Client for Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) . This file enables a Java SE client application to access remote Enterprise Java Beans on a server through Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) look up. If this file is running with a non-IBM product JRE on a non-IBM product platform, the IBM ORB implementation library, com.ibm.ws.orb_8.5.0.jar, is also needed.
    com.ibm.ws.jpa.thinclient_8.5.0.jar IBM Thin Client for Java Persistence API (JPA). This file allows a Java SE client application to use the Java Persistence API (JPA) to store and retrieve persistent data without the use of an application server.
    com.ibm.ws.messagingClient.jar With the com.ibm.ws.ejb.thinclient_8.5.0.jar file, this file enables a Java SE client application to use WebSphere® MQ messaging provider JMS resources from the WebSphere Application Server JNDI namespace. WebSphere MQ client jar files are also needed, and must be obtained from the WebSphere MQ product.
    com.ibm.ws.orb_8.5.0.jar The IBM ORB implementation library. This file is needed if the IBM Thin Client for EJB is running with a non-IBM product JRE on a non-IBM product platform.
    com.ibm.ws.sib.client.thin.jms_8.5.0.jar IBM Thin Client for Java Messaging Service (JMS). This file enables a Java SE client application to use JMS resources of the default messaging provider. For languages other than US English, you also need the additional language files from sibc.nls.zip, which provides language-specific resource bundles.
    com.ibm.ws.sib.client_ExpeditorDRE_8.5.0.jar The JMS Client packaged for Lotus® Expeditor.
    com.ibm.ws.webservices.thinclient_8.5.0.jar IBM Thin Client for Java API for XML-based RPC (JAX-RPC). This file enable a Java SE client application to use the JAX-RPC programming model to invoke web services that are hosted by the application server.

    If you are running two or more of these stand-alone thin clients together, you must obtain all the clients that you are using from the same installation of Application Client for WebSphere Application Server, the same installation of the WebSphere Application Server product, or the same service refresh.

What to do next

After developing and compiling a stand-alone thin client application, you can deploy and run the client application.