Preparing the development environment on webLogic

About this task

To enable WebLogic to run Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Foundation without creating an EAR, you must define an application in WebLogic with the appropriate settings and then configure your startup script to set up the CLASSPATH required by the application.

Setting up the application directory structure enables WebLogic to read from files directly rather than from the EAR file.

To configure WebLogic to run application in exploded mode:

Procedure

  1. Edit the <WEBLOGIC_DOMAIN>/bin/startWebLogic.cmd script for windows (startWebLogic.sh for UNIX), and set the following argument in Options as Java™ parameters:
    -Dsci.opsproxy.disable=Y -Dvendor=shell
    -DvendorFile=/servers.properties
  2. Start your WebLogic server and open the WebLogic system console. The system console can be accessed using a URL similar to the following:
    http://<hostname or ip-address>:<port number of your 
    WebLogic Server>/console
  3. Log in to the console using the system administrator ID and password for your WebLogic server.
  4. In the Domain Structure panel, click Deployments.

    If there are existing deployments of the application, stop them and delete them:

    1. Stop the existing deployments of the application:
      • Check the box of the applicable deployment you want to delete.
      • Click Stop and select Force Stop Now from the pop-up menu.
      • In Delete Application Assistant, click Yes.
      • In Messages, the message "Selected Deployments have been requested to stop" displays.
    2. Delete the existing deployments of the application:
      • Check the box of the applicable deployment you want to delete.
      • Click Delete.
      • In Delete Application Assistant, click Yes.
      • In Messages, this message displays: "Selected Deployments were deleted. Remember to click Activate Changes after you are finished."
      • In the Change Center panel, click Activate Changes.
  5. In Location, browse to the directory where the <application_name>.war file was extracted and click Next.
  6. Select Install this deployment as an application and click Next.
  7. In Source accessibility, Select I will make the deployment accessible from the following location.

    In Location:, make sure that the location points to the directory where the <application_name>.war file was extracted.

  8. Copy the weblogic.xml file from the INSTALL_DIR/repository/eardata/platform/descriptors/weblogic/WAR/WEB-INF directory to the INSTALL_DIR/extensions/smcfs directory.
  9. Copy the ycpapibundle.properties file and ycpapibundle_<lang>_ <country_or_region>.properties (if applicable) from the <INSTALL_DIR>/resources directory to the <INSTALL_DIR>/repository/eardata/smcfs/war/yfscommon directory.
  10. Copy the yscpapibundle.properties file and yscpapibundle_<lang>_ <country_or_region>.properties (if applicable) from the <INSTALL_DIR>/resources directory to the <INSTALL_DIR>/repository/eardata/smcfs/war/yfscommon directory.
  11. Copy the extnbundle.properties file and extnbundle_<lang>_ <country_or_region>.properties (if applicable) from the <INSTALL_DIR>/resources/extn directory to the <INSTALL_DIR>/repository/eardata/smcfs/war/yfscommon directory.
  12. (Optional) If a PCA is installed, copy the following files to the <INSTALL_DIR>/repository/eardata/smcfs/war/yfscommon directory:
    • <INSTALL_DIR>/resources/com.yantra.yfc.rcp.common_bundle.properties
    • <INSTALL_DIR>/resources/com.yantra.yfc.rcp_bundle.properties
    • <INSTALL_DIR>/resources/PCA_Codebundle.properties. For example, for Sterling Call Center and Sterling Store application, copy the ycdbundle.properties file.
  13. Copy the extensions you have made to the <INSTALL_DIR>/extensions/global/webpages directory.
    Exception: To include a customized JSP in a specific package, place it in <INSTALL_DIR>/extensions/<package>/webpages. For example, use <INSTALL_DIR>/extensions /smcfs/webpages and <INSTALL_DIR>/extensions/sbc/webpages for smcfs or sbc wars, respectively.

    To include a customized JSP in all packages, place it in <INSTALL_DIR>/extensions /global/webpages.

  14. Rebuild the EAR file as you did during installation process. You can also 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.
  15. Extract the following war files from the smcfs.ear file:
    • smcfs.war
    • sbc.war
    • sma.war

    And extract the smcfsdocs.war file from the smcfsdocs.ear file.

    Then extract each of these war files into a directory of your choice.

  16. Extract the remaining jar files from the smcfs.ear file and copy all the extracted jar files to WEB-INF/lib. Doing this will make these jar files accessible to WebLogic and you don't have to include these jar files in the WebLogic CLASSPATH.
  17. Deploy each directory on WebLogic as a Web application.
  18. Test your customizations using the following WebLogic Hot Deployment Test Mode standards:
    If you modify... In these files... Then...
    Startup parameters properties Restart WebLogic
    UI extensibility JSP, JavaScript, CSS, theme XML Load dynamically
    Localization literals alertmessages and localization bundle files Restart WebLogic
    Database extensions entity XMLs Rebuild the entities.jar file and include the jar in the classpath directory, then restart WebSphere®.
    APIs and other template files template XMLs Rebuild the resources.jar file and include the jar in the classpath directory, then restart WebLogic.

What to do next

Now you need to configure WebLogic as described subsequently. If you need further information, see the WebLogic documentation.

WebLogic must be configured to enable the server to read from the directory where the application_name.war file was extracted. The necessary steps for configuring WebLogic to run the application in exploded (non-EAR) mode for your development environment are given as follows.

Note:

Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Foundation deployed in exploded mode works in the same way as the Solution deployed in EAR mode. There are no performance implications specific to exploded mode.

IBM® recommends the EAR mode of deployment in production. In case an application server hosts multiple applications, there is no interference for jars or classes across applications. This is because each application is packaged or deployed as a single EAR file isolated from other application packages (EARs). However, in exploded mode, the class that is first added to the classpath is always considered.