Testing and publishing on your server

The testing and publishing tools provides runtime environments where you can test JSP files, servlets, HTML files, web services, enterprise beans, Java™ Persistence API, Java(tm) classes and many more artifacts.

You can use the workbench to test and publish resources from many types of projects, here are examples:

Dynamic Web projects, which typically contain JSP files, HTML files, servlets, and JavaBeans
Static Web projects, which typically contain HTML files and graphic files
Enterprise Applications projects, which may contain Java Archive (JAR) files or Web Archive (WAR) files or both, and pointers to other Web or EJB projects
EJB projects, which contain enterprise beans
Application client projects

After testing your application, you can use the tools to publish the application.

Server definitions

The workbench defines servers to test and publish your projects. Servers are definitions that identify where you want to test your projects. You can either have the development environment create the servers automatically for you, or you can create them using the New Server wizard (right-click in the Servers view and select New > Server).

Compatible Application Servers

The Version 8.5 release of Rational Application Developer introduces support for WebSphere® Application Server Liberty Profile. The Liberty Profile server is a lightweight profile of the application server for web, Web 2.0, mobile, and OSGi applications. It is designed to be small in size, simple to configure, and fast to restart. Use this server when you are building applications that do not require the full Java EE environment of traditional enterprise application server profiles. For more information about the Liberty profile server, see the Liberty profile server help topic.

The application server that is commonly used with Rational Application Developer is WebSphere Application Server, which is tightly integrated with the workbench. To test, run, and debug applications on the server, the workbench contains tools such as Run On Server. The following features are available from within the workbench:

Specifying server-specific configurations such as extensions and bindings to a WebSphere Application Server
Starting tools from WebSphere Application Server, such as the administrative console and the Profile Management Tool
Developing, running, and debugging administrative scripts against the application server

To discover more tools for WebSphere Application Server that are integrated with the IBM® Rational® Software Delivery Platform, see the product help.

If you installed WebSphere Application Server when you installed Rational Application Developer, remember that WebSphere Application Server is a separate product from the Rational Application Developer workbench. As a result, WebSphere Application Server or any other application server that you integrate with this workbench usually has a different set of supported hardware and software. To determine which hardware and software are supported for a particular application server, see the publications for that server. For example, if the application server is WebSphere Application Server, see System Requirements for the WebSphere Application Server.

Server adapters for particular servers are included in Rational Application Developer from the Web Tools Platform based on Eclipse technology. You can also download additional server adapters to the workbench: Open the Servers view, right-click; then click New. In the New Server wizard, click Download additional server adapters.

Integrating with WebSphere Application Server

The versions of IBM WebSphere Application Server that are compatible with this product are:

V6.1 with the option to install the Feature Packs for Web Services, EJB 3.0, Web 2.0, or all
V7.0 with the option to install the Feature Packs for Communications Enabled Applications, Modern Batch, OSGi Applications, Service Component Architecture, Web 2.0, XML, or all
V8.0
V8.5
V8.5 Liberty Profile

You can create the following types of WebSphere Application Servers:

Stand-alone (unmanaged) server: A node that is defined in the cell of a WebSphere Application Server topology that does not run a node agent to manage its process
Federated (managed) server: A server that runs a node agent to manage its process

Rational Application Developer does not support the tools for a federated (managed) WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment environment. The Rational Application Developer workbench does not support connections to the deployment manager, and it does not support publishing to clusters or federated nodes. However, there is support for stand-alone (unmanaged) WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment; you can test, run, and debug applications from the workbench to a stand-alone (unmanaged) application server. For both managed and unmanaged WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment, you can continue to run the Profile Management Tool from within the workbench to create and augment profiles.

Rational Application Developer Server Tools does not provide support for embedded hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) servers or web servers with IBM WebSphere Test Environment or WebSphere Application Servers in Rational Application Developer. These web servers can be added by using the WebSphere Application Server admin console in Rational Application Developer. After being added, the web servers don't show after restarting WebSphere Application Server or re-publishing to WebSphere Application Server in Rational Application Developer. This is because, the embedded web servers are not supported by the server tools that provide tools to run WebSphere Application Server on Rational Application Developer. For more information, see the DCF document at http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21064208.

For a remote WebSphere Application Server, the Agent Controller is no longer required. There is a WebSphere File Transfer servlet application, filetransfer.ear file, available in the WebSphere Application Server V6.1 or later. The WebSphere File Transfer servlet application handles the publishing method automatically. If you are running a remote or local secured WebSphere Application Server V6.1 with the Run server with resources on Server publishing option, you need to run the redeployFileTransfer.jacl script. This script switches to the secured version of the WebSphere File Transfer servlet application, filetransferSecured.ear. To run this redeployFileTransfer.jacl script complete the steps in the following Publishing fails and console output does not display to a secured WebSphere Application Server v6.x topic. For WebSphere Application Server V7.0 or later, you no longer need to run the redeployFileTransfer.jacl script as this step is automated.

Specification-level

The workbench provides server selection options based on the specification-level you have defined for your project. Below is a summary of specification-level support for the different version-levels of the WebSphere Application Server. For more details on the WebSphere Application Server and the specification-level it supports, see the Specifications and API documentation topic in the WebSphere Application Server Information Center:

WebSphere Application Server V6.1

J2EE 1.4 (or earlier) support is available for running applications against a WebSphere Application Server V6.1.

WebSphere Application Server V6.1 with Feature Pack for EJB 3.0

WebSphere Application Server V6.1 with Feature Pack for EJB 3.0 does not fully support Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) 5 specification-level. The server can support an Enterprise archive (EAR) 5.0 application containing Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 3.0 modules. However, container-managed persistence (CMP) beans at 2.1 (or earlier) specification-levels are not supported in the EJB 3.0 module. In addition, the Web module must remain at Web 2.4 (or earlier) specification-levels and the application client module must remain at J2EE 1.4 (or earlier) specification-level.

Although, the WebSphere Application Server V6.1 with Feature Pack for EJB 3.0 does not support Servlet 2.5 Web archive (WAR) files and Java EE 5 application client modules, the application server does support annotated injections for Servlet 2.4 WAR files and J2EE 1.4 application clients as a Common Annotations extension.

WebSphere Application Server V7.0

Java EE 5 (or earlier) support is available for running applications against a WebSphere Application Server V7.0.

WebSphere Application Server V8.0

Java EE 6 (or earlier) support is available for running applications against a WebSphere Application Server V8.0.

WebSphere Application Server V8.5

Java EE 6(or earlier) support is available for running applications against a WebSphere Application Server V8.5 .

WebSphere Application Server V8.5 Liberty Profile

Java EE 6 (or earlier) support is available for running applications against a WebSphere Application Server V8.5 Liberty Profile.

Limitations

Rational Application Developer does not support the tools for a federated (managed) WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment environment. The Rational Application Developer workbench does not support connections to the deployment manager, and it does not support publishing to clusters or federated nodes. However, there is support for stand-alone (unmanaged) WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment; you can test, run, and debug applications from the workbench to a stand-alone (unmanaged) application server. For both managed and unmanaged WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment, you can continue to run the Profile Management Tool from within the workbench to create and augment profiles.
Rational Application Developer Server Tools does not provide support for embedded hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) servers or web servers with IBM WebSphere Test Environment or WebSphere Application Servers in Rational Application Developer. These web servers can be added by using the WebSphere Application Server admin console in Rational Application Developer. After being added, the web servers don't show after restarting WebSphere Application Server or re-publishing to WebSphere Application Server in Rational Application Developer. This is because, the embedded web servers are not supported by the server tools that provide tools to run WebSphere Application Server on Rational Application Developer. For more information, see the DCF document at http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21064208.

Feedback