Kevin Cheong

Thanks for the reply. That really helps. I think the deployment descriptors help for local use since you don't want to be setting up the bindings each time you recompile and deploy your code on your local machine.

I can see how it will be a limitation once you use that EAR file in other environments, using different schemas/user, url, etc.

Do you know which file to exclude from the EAR file to exclude this? I want it setup on my local machine but I don't want it in the EAR which I'm using Ant to build.

I'm using RAD but this is more of a question about how datasources are setup in Websphere in general. I'm trying to explain what I know and I have some questions at the end. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Any help is appreciated!

From my perspective, it seems like it can be done two ways? In the admin console or through modifying the application.xml and web.xml files?

In the admin console, I would create the datasource via the Resources tab and when installing the application, I would bind the datasource to the web modules.

The other way which I'm setup now is to setup the datasource in the application.xml file, under the deployment tab when viewed in RAD. I will also have to bind the datasource in the web.xml file, references tab. No config is necessary in the admin console for this method.

So what's the difference of both of the methods? I can see how it will be useful to define it in the application.xml file since we don't have to recreate the datasource for every different server. Anything else?

Which is more commonly used?

Thanks Jeanne! You've been great help.

Jeanne, I have another question I am hoping you can help with.

Can we deploy a WSAD 5.12 developed EAR to WAS 6? I'm guessing it should be fine since the EAR file follows the J2EE 1.3 specs?

I would but its not as easy as that.. We have everything automated by Ant. It used to work on the server that does not presently though. My colleague tried to make a mod just before this problem though. WAS actually extracts the EAR that you deploy and places it somewhere in the WAS directory. My colleague tried replacing a utility jar in that EAR and everything suddenly blowed up. I've double checked and triple checked the classpaths and settings across all servers and I can't find anything drastically different that will cause the problems. We're going to decide what to do next. Meanwhile if you have any other suggestions on what I should do, I would be glad to hear it!

Thanks Jeanne. That makes total sense and it must be the problem why I cannot deploy a J2EE 1.4 jar to WAS 5. Do you know if its possible to have WAS 5 and WAS 6 on the same machine? I know its possible with WSAD 5.12 and RAD 6 since I have both of them on my machine but I'm not sure if its possible for the 2 server applications to be on one machine.

Thanks. I have Websphere building the manifest file initially and later on Ant modifies it with some version info. If the manifest file is invalid, it probably shouldn't work for the other servers as well. I'm thinking it should have something to do with the server. Is there a possibility that the Application Server (I'm using WAS) is 'corrupt' and not processing the manifest file?

I have a problem with my project. I have an EAR file with a few jars in it.
a.jar, b.jar, c.jar.

a.jar has the logging classes and uses log4j. Therefore a.jar has a manifest file with log4j in its class path.

The final EAR file has in its root:
a.jar
b.jar
c.jar
log4j

b.jar references a.jar. I get NoClassDefFound log4j errors due to the Category class. Basically, it can't find the log4j jar even though its specified in the manifest. Strangest thing is it works in all of my servers but not on one of them. Is there some configuration problem I have that is problematic in that one server? I tried adding log4j explicitly to the server startup classpath, and it works. However, that's not a long term solution.

Its as though the manifest file of a.jar is not being read in correctly. I think I have the projects organized correctly... Any help or suggestions would really help.

An update on this.. It seems that the application.xml file in the RAD 6 EAR file has some namespaces (which it doesn't even use). On the other hand, if I built a similar project in WSAD 5.12, I don't get that namespaces (in the application element of the application.xml file). If built using 5.12, I also get a doctype element which is not found if I build using RAD6. Could all this be due to a different J2EE version? 1.3 for WSAD 5.12 and 1.4 for RAD 6.

I have a new project developed in RAD 6. I have WAS 5.12 on the server that I want to deploy to. Is this allowed?

Here's the error that I get:
The EAR file could be corrupt and/or incomplete.
com.ibm.etools.archive.exception.DeploymentDescriptorLoadException: META-INF/application.xml

This happens after I select the EAR file and hit next in the Admin Console. Anybody can tell me if what I'm trying to do is possible and if it is, what could be wrong?

Thanks.