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A WAR file is a Web Application Archive - containing
servlets, JSPs, and their supporting classes and files. A servlet container like
Tomcat is required to deploy these.
An EAR file is an Enterprise Application Archive, which is a general
J2EE application. It might contain a web app, but also EJBs. A full J2EE container like
JBoss, WebSphere, WebLogic etc. is required to deploy these.