Deprecated feature

Deploying new and changed store assets into a separated store EAR

If the store WAR for your WebSphere Commerce instance is separated into a store EAR, you can use the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool to deploy assets into the store EAR.

Packaging and deploying store assets into the store EAR

Before you use the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool to package your assets, ensure that you configure the tool to be able to build a package for deploying to your separated store EAR. To deploy to different applications, such as a separated store EAR, include the application.type build configuration property when you configure the build process. By including this property, you can specify the application where the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool build process is to deploy assets. After you separate your store archive, you can specify the following application types as the value for this build process configuration property:

wc: The WebSphere Commerce EAR. By default, this EAR is named WC_instance_name.ear
search: The WebSphere Commerce search EAR. By default, this EAR is named Search_instance_name.ear
wcstores: The separated WebSphere Commerce store EAR. By default, this EAR is named WCStores_instance_name.ear

When you are building your packages for deployment, build two packages. Build one packaged for deploying server-side assets to the WebSphere Commerce EAR and the second package for deploying your store assets to the store EAR. When you use the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool to build the package for the WebSphere Commerce EAR, specify wc as the value for the application.type property. When you build the package for your store EAR, specify wcstores as the application.type property value.

For more information about this configuration property, see Build configuration properties. For more information about configuring the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool build process, see Configuring and running the build process.

When you deploy your packaged assets to your production environment, deploy your WebSphere Commerce EAR assets first. Then, deploy your store assets package to your store EAR.

If your WebSphere Commerce EAR assets are not in a file path that is configured for the shared library between the two EARs, update the shared library to point to your deployed server-side JAR file. If your assets are included within a path that configured for the shared library, you do not need to update your shared library configuration. Any new JAR files that you deploy within a configured path for the shared library can automatically be referenced by the shared library. You can update your shared library, Customer_shared_lib by including the JAR file in the class path within the configuration tab for the shared library properties in the WebSphere Application Server Admin Console. For more information, see Running the server deployment process for server-side assets.

If the store assets that you changed are deployed to only the store EAR, and the asset is not referenced by any shared library, you do not need to restart the WebSphere Commerce server. For example, when you are deploying only JSP file changes, you might not need to restart the server. If you deployed assets also into the WebSphere Commerce EAR, you must restart the server.

For a tutorial about building and deploying custom assets for deployment into the WebSphere Commerce EAR and store EAR after the store WAR is separated into a store EAR, see Building and deploying assets into a separated store archive.

Publishing new and changed store assets

After you deploy your assets into the separated store EAR, you can use WebSphere Commerce utilities to publish the assets to the storefront. You do not have to update or change the provided WebSphere Commerce utilities before you can use the utilities to publish assets into your production environment store EAR. When the store separation enablement process runs, the WebSphere Commerce utilities that update EAR files, such as file upload or quick publish are configured to user the StoreSepWASEARUpdater EAR updater. This configuration ensures that utilities can propagate changed assets into the store EAR and appropriate shared libraries. When you do use a utility to publish your store assets, ensure that you specify the new location where the assets are to be published.

For example, when you use the fileprop utility or use the stagingprop utility that runs the fileprop utility as part of the stagingprop operation, specify the appropriate EAR as the value for the -appname parameter. If you are loading store assets into the separated store EAR, set the value of the -appname parameter to be the store EAR. By default the value of the separated store EAR is WCStores_instanceName.ear.

Note: You must specify the -appname parameter value as your store EAR if you are running the fileprop utility as part of the stagingprop process or as a stand-alone process. When the fileprop utility runs, the value of the -appname parameter must be correctly passed in before the utility can call the WebSphere Application Server wcsadmin command. For more information about running the fileprop utility, see fileprop utility.