Preparing the development environment onWebSphere

About this task

When using WebSphere®, you can test the modifications that you have made to Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Foundation.

Note: IBM® recommends that you directly copy all the jar files from the extracted EAR to the WEB-INF/lib directory. Doing this will make these jar files accessible to WebSphere and you do not have to include these jar files in the WebSphere CLASSPATH.

To configure WebSphere to run the application in exploded mode:

Procedure

  1. Set the following JVM arguments for this deployment:
    -Dsci.opsproxy.disable=Y 
    -Dvendor=shell -DvendorFile=/servers.properties
  2. Deploy the EAR, using the documentation provided by IBM. During deployment, WebSphere copies all the contents of WAR and EAR files to the <WAS_HOME>/AppServer/profiles/<PROFILE_NAME>/installedApps/<CELL_NAME>/<APP_NAME>/ directory.

    After deployment, any files copied to the <WAS_HOME>/AppServer/profiles/<PROFILE_NAME>/installedApps/<CELL_NAME>/<APP_NAME>/ directory can be modified as needed. For example, if you are extending a custom code written as part of the database extensibility, the custom code files can be directly moved to the appropriate directory under <WAS_HOME>/AppServer/profiles/<PROFILE_NAME>/installedApps/<CELL_NAME>/<APP_NAME>/ directory for testing. IBM calls this ability to modify and move files as needed "hot deployment."

    The custom JSPs written as part of UI extensibility can be directly incorporated into the application WAR file.

    Note: The application does not support documentation extensions for Context-Sensitive Help in exploded mode. But you can build documentation EAR along with the application EAR. The doc ear does not contain end-user documentation, such as the context-sensitive help files. It contains only development-related documentation, including API Javadocs, ERDs, and XSDs that should not be deployed to a production server.
    To build the documentation EAR, smcfsdocs.ear along with the application EAR, before running the buildear command, add the BUILD_DOC_EAR property and set the value to "true" in the <INSTALL_DIR>/properties/sandbox.cfg file and run the setupfiles script.
    Note: By default, the documentation EAR is not built and deployed with the application EAR.
    Note: The -Dnodocear parameter takes precedence over the BUILD_DOC_EAR property. For example, if the BUILD_DOC_EAR property is set to "true" but the -Dnodocear parameter is used with the create-ear script, the documentation EAR does not build.
  3. Build your extensions.
  4. Stop the application server.
  5. Copy the jars created as part of building and deploying extensions and overwrite the jars in <WAS_HOME>/AppServer/profiles/<PROFILE_NAME>/installedApps/<CELL_NAME>/<APP_NAME>.
    For example:
    • If you are extending your database, build and deploy the entities.jar and copy the jar to the <WAS_HOME>/AppServer/profiles/<PROFILE_NAME>/installedApps/CELL_NAME/<APP_NAME> directory.
    • If you are extending UI resources, build and deploy the resources.jar, and copy the jar to the <WAS_HOME>/AppServer/profiles/<PROFILE_NAME>/installedApps/<CELL_NAME>/<APP_NAME> directory.
  6. Copy your customized files (for example, localization literal files, JSPs), to the appropriate <WAS_HOME>/AppServer/profiles/<PROFILE_NAME>/installedApps/<CELL_NAME>/APP_NAME/smcfs.war/<Module_Name> directory.

    For example, if you have some customizations in the Catalog module, add the files in the <WAS_HOME>/AppServer/profiles/<PROFILE_NAME>/installedApps/<CELL_NAME>/<APP_NAME>/smcfs.war/ycm directory.

  7. Restart the application server.
  8. Test your customizations using the following WebSphere Hot Deployment Test Mode standards:
    If you modify... In these files... Then...
    Startup parameters properties Restart WebSphere.
    UI extensibility JSP, JavaScript, CSS, theme XML Load dynamically.
    Localization literals alertmessages and localization bundle files Restart WebSphere.
    Database extensions entity XMLs

    Rebuild the entities.jar file.

    Include the jar in the following directory:
    WAS_HOME/AppServer/profiles/PROFILE_NAME/
    installedApps/CELL_NAME/APP_NAME

    Restart WebSphere.

    APIs and other template files template XMLs Rebuild the resources.jar file.
    Include the jar in the following directory:
    WAS_HOME/AppServer/profiles/PROFILE_NAME/
    installedApps/CELL_NAME/APP_NAME

    Restart WebSphere.