A J2EE application will be bundled in an EAR (Enterprise Archive) file for the deployment. The EAR file can contain different modules like Web Module, Resource Adapters, Client application modules and EJB modules. The structure of an EAR file is a follows.
EAR file
|
| – META-INF
- application.xml (The deployment descriptor of an EAR file).
| – Resource Adapters (xyz.rar)
- META-INF
- ra.xml (Deployment descriptor for resource adapters)
|
| – Client modules (xyz.jar)
- META-INF
- application-client.xml (Deployment descriptor for client modules)
|
| – EJB Modules (xyz.jar)
- META-INF
- ejb-jar.xml (EJB deployment descriptor)
|
| – WAR Modules (xyz.war)
WEB-INF
web.xml (Deployment descriptor of web module)
The EAR file may or may not contain one or more modules.
