Overview: Testing and publishing on your server
The testing and publishing tools provides runtime environments where you can test JSP files, servlets, HTML files, web services, enterprise beans, Java™™ Persistence API, Java classes and many more artifacts.
You can use the workbench to test and publish resources from many types of projects, here are examples:
- Dynamic Web projects, which typically contain JSP files, HTML files, servlets, and JavaBeans
- Static Web projects, which typically contain HTML files and graphic files
- Enterprise Applications projects, which may contain Java Archive (JAR) files or Web Archive (WAR) files or both, and pointers to other Web or EJB projects
- EJB projects, which contain enterprise beans
- Application client projects
After testing your application, you can use the tools to publish the application.
Server Definitions
The workbench defines servers to test and publish your projects. Servers are definitions that identify where you want to test your projects. You can either have the development environment create the servers automatically for you, or you can create them using the New Server wizard (right-click in the Servers view and select
).Compatible Application Servers
The Version 8.5 release of the product introduces support for WebSphere® Application Server Liberty. Liberty is a lightweight profile of the application server for web, Web 2.0, mobile, and OSGi applications. Liberty is a highly composable, fast to start, ultra lightweight profile of the application server that is optimized for developer productivity and smaller, simpler production server deployments. Use this server when you are building applications that do not require the full Java EE environment of traditional enterprise application server profiles. For more information about the Liberty, see the Liberty server help topic.
- Starting tools from WebSphere Application Server, such as the administrative console and the Profile Management Tool
- Developing, running, and debugging administrative scripts against the application server
Server adapters for particular servers are included in the product from the Web Tools Platform that is based on Eclipse technology. You can also download more server adapters to the workbench: Open the Servers view, right-click; then click New. In the New Server wizard, click Download additional server adapters.
Integrating with WebSphere Application Server
The following versions of IBM® WebSphere Application Server are compatible with this product:- V7.0 with the option to install the Feature Packs for Communications Enabled Applications, Modern Batch, OSGi Applications, Service Component Architecture, Web 2.0, XML, or all
- V8.0
- V8.5
- V8.5 Liberty
- Stand-alone (unmanaged) server
- A node that is defined in the cell of a WebSphere Application Server topology that does not run a node agent to manage its process.
- Federated (managed) server
- A server that runs a node agent to manage its process.
WebSphere Application Server Developer Tools for Eclipse does not provide support for embedded hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) servers or web servers with IBM WebSphere Test Environment. These web servers can be added by using the WebSphere Application Server admin console. After being added, the web servers don't show after restarting WebSphere Application Server or re-publishing to WebSphere Application Server. This is because the embedded web servers are not supported by the server tools that provide tools to run WebSphere Application Server. For more information, see the DCF document at http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21064208.
Specification-level
The workbench provides server selection options that are based on the specification-level that you defined for your project. The following list summarizes specification-level support for the different version-levels of the WebSphere Application Server. For more information about supported WebSphere Application Server specification-levels, see Specifications and API documentation.WebSphere Application Server Version 7.0
Java EE 5 (or earlier) support is available for running applications against a WebSphere Application Server V7.0.
WebSphere Application Server Version 8.0
Java EE 6 (or earlier) support is available for running applications against a WebSphere Application Server V8.0.
WebSphere Application Server Version 8.5
Java EE 6 (or earlier) support is available for running applications against a WebSphere Application Server Version 8.5 .
WebSphere Application Server Version 8.5 Liberty
Java EE 6 (or earlier) support is available for running applications against a WebSphere Application Server Version 8.5 Liberty.