Updating enterprise applications consists of adding a new file or module to an installed
Java™ Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) application, or
replacing or removing an installed application, file or module.
Before you begin
Before you update the application files on a server, ensure that the files are assembled in
deployable modules.
Next, refer to Ways to update enterprise
application files and decide how to update your application files. You can update enterprise
applications or modules using the administrative console, the wsadmin tool, or Java MBean
programming. These ways provide similar updating capabilities.
Further, ensure that the updated files can be installed to your deployment targets.
About this task
The steps describe how to update deployed applications or modules using the administrative
console.
Procedure
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Back up the installed application or module.
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Go to the Enterprise applications page of the administrative console.
Click in the console navigation tree.
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Export the application to an EAR file or export a file in the application.
Select the application you want to export and click Export or
Export File. Exporting preserves the binding information.
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With the application selected on the Enterprise applications page, click
Update.
The Preparing for application update page is
displayed.
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Under Specify the EAR, WAR, JAR, RAR, or SAR module to upload and
install:
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Ensure that Application to be updated refers to the application to be
updated.
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Under Application update options, select the installed application,
module, or file that you want to update.
The online help Preparing for application update
settings provides detailed information on the options.
Avoid trouble: You cannot add, remove, or modify a Java Application
Programming Interface (API) for XML-Based Web Services (JAX-WS) annotation using the
Replace or add a single file or Replace, add, or delete multiple
files update options. These options change a single file or a partial application. If
you change a JAX-WS annotation using either of these options, the product does not return an error.
However, you might encounter problems deploying annotated web services.
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If you selected the Replace the entire application or Replace
or add a single module option:
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Click Next to display a wizard for updating application files.
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Complete the steps in the update wizard.
This update wizard, which is similar to the installation wizard, provides fields for specifying
or editing application binding information. Refer to information on installing applications using
the console and on the Preparing for application installation binding settings
page for guidance.
Note that the installation steps have the merged binding information from the new version and the
old version. If the new version has bindings for application artifacts such as Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI)
names, EJB references or resource references, then those bindings will be part of the merged binding
information. If new bindings are not present, then bindings are taken from the installed (old)
version. If bindings are not present in the old version and if the default binding generation option
is enabled, then the default bindings will be part of the merged binding information.
You can select whether to ignore bindings in the old version or ones in the new version.
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Click Finish.
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If you did not use the Manage modules page of the update wizard, after
updating the application, map the installed application or module to servers.
Use the page accessed from the Enterprise applications page.
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Go to the Manage modules page.
Click .
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Specify the application server where you want to install modules contained in your application
and click OK.
You can deploy Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.4 modules to servers on Version 6 or
later nodes. You can deploy Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) 5 modules to servers on
Version 7.x or later nodes. You can deploy Java EE 6 modules to servers on Version 8.x or later
nodes. You can deploy Java EE 7 modules to servers on Version 9.x nodes.
Results
After replacement of a full application, the product uninstalls the old application. After
replacement of a module, file or partial application, the product removes the old installed module,
file or partial application from the installed application.
What to do next
After the application file or module installs successfully, do the following:
- Save the changes to your configuration.
When you update a
full application in the single server (base) product, after you save the changes, the old version of
the application is uninstalled and the new version is installed into the configuration. The
application binaries for the old version are deleted from the destination directory and the new
binaries are copied to the directory.
- If needed, restart the application manually so the changes take effect.
If the application is
updated while it is running, the product automatically stops the application or only its changed
components, updates the application logic, and restarts the stopped application or its
components.
If you update module metadata while an application is running, restarting the
application might not be sufficient for the changes to take effect. For example, if you change
descriptors in running Java EE 6 applications that use annotations, you must reinstall the
application. If you change classes that introduce, remove, or alter class hierarchies within an
application, and those changes impact annotated classes, you also must reinstall the
application.
- If the application you are updating is deployed on a server that has its application class
loader policy set to Single on the application server settings page, restart
the server.