A
deployment plan Is a plain xml document that defines a application
deployment configurations that are specific for a weblogic server
environment such as Production, Test and Development. The deployment
plan exists outside of the application archive and will override the
configurations specified by the application descriptors. We can use
the deployment plan to easily change the configurations from
production to test and development.
The
deployment plan lets an admin define specific features for a
deployment in an xml file and re-use them for different deployments.
For example, a web application in a production environment has a
context root as /example and in test or development we need to
specify the context root as /examples for the same web application,
then we can create a deployment plan from the production environment.
We can edit it, change the context root and deploy the same in the
test and development environments [but we have a different context
roots]
We
will use the SimpleSample application in our Demo. this is a simple
application with a servlet which prints a message on the screen.
First
we will deploy the application into the weblogic server , just follow
the steps below for deploying the application ..
Click
On Deployments [on the Left Hand Tree]
On
the right hand side, you will see a “Summary of deployments” ->
select “install”
Now
select the path where your war file is available -> Next
Select
“install the deployment as an application” -> Next
Select
the target -> Next
Next
-> Next - > Finish
You
can the test the application by going to
Deployments
-> Application Name ->Testing
Once
the application is deployed and working , we will see how to create a
deployment plan for the simpleSample application.
Go
to Deployments -> select the application “SimpleSample”
Go
to Configuration Tab -> make some changes [I changed the Session
Timeout (in seconds): to 3601 from 3600 ]
Save
[ you will asked for saving the deployment plan as plain.xml ] .save
it
Now
lets edit the deployment plan . open the deployment plan.xml file in
a text editor.
An
excerpt from the deployment plan.xml file generated on my desktop
<?xml
version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<deployment-plan
xmlns="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/deployment-plan"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/deployment-plan
http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/deployment-plan/1.0/deployment-plan.xsd"
global-variables="false">
<application-name>deploy_plan</application-name>
<variable-definition>
<variable>
<name>SessionDescriptor_invalidationIntervalSecs_12706221845760</name>
<value>50</value>
</variable>
</variable-definition>
<module-override>
<module-name>SimpleSample.war</module-name>
<module-type>war</module-type>
<module-descriptor
external="true">
<root-element>weblogic-web-app</root-element>
<uri>WEB-INF/weblogic.xml</uri>
<variable-assignment>
<name>SessionDescriptor_invalidationIntervalSecs_12706221845760</name>
<xpath>/weblogic-web-app/session-descriptor/invalidation-interval-secs</xpath>
</variable-assignment>
<hash-code>1270622184576</hash-code>
</module-descriptor>
<module-descriptor
external="false">
<root-element>web-app</root-element>
<uri>WEB-INF/web.xml</uri>
</module-descriptor>
<module-descriptor
external="true">
<root-element>wldf-resource</root-element>
<uri>META-INF/weblogic-diagnostics.xml</uri>
</module-descriptor>
</module-override>
<config-root>C:\Documents
and Settings\xprk477\Desktop\deploy_plan\plan</config-root>
</deployment-plan>
The
mechanism works as follows first we need to define a variable in
brown section and then assigning it to the application [purple
section] . the xpath element in the variable-assignment is just a
link to the element in the weblogic.xml descriptor. We have changed
the session invalidation interval seconds, so now this value will
reflect the value in weblogic.xml‘s session invalidation interval
second .
Coming
to our Demo , we will add a “WeblogicWebApp_ContextRoots”
element to the deployment plan.xml file since we need to change the
context root element from “SimpleSample” to some other .now my
modified deployment plan.xml looks like this ,
<?xml
version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<deployment-plan
xmlns="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/deployment-plan"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/deployment-plan
http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/deployment-plan/1.0/deployment-plan.xsd"
global-variables="false">
<application-name>deploy_plan</application-name>
<variable-definition>
<variable>
<name>WeblogicWebApp_ContextRoots_12706221845760</name>
<value>"/songissong"</value>
</variable>
<variable>
<name>SessionDescriptor_invalidationIntervalSecs_12706221845760</name>
<value>50</value>
</variable>
</variable-definition>
<module-override>
<module-name>SimpleSample.war</module-name>
<module-type>war</module-type>
<module-descriptor
external="true">
<root-element>weblogic-web-app</root-element>
<uri>WEB-INF/weblogic.xml</uri>
<variable-assignment>
<name>WeblogicWebApp_ContextRoots_12706221845760</name>
<xpath>/weblogic-web-
app/context-root</xpath>
<operation>replace</operation>
</variable-assignment>
<variable-assignment>
<name>SessionDescriptor_invalidationIntervalSecs_12706221845760</name>
<xpath>/weblogic-web-app/session-descriptor/invalidation-interval-secs</xpath>
</variable-assignment>
<hash-code>1270622184576</hash-code>
</module-descriptor>
<module-descriptor
external="false">
<root-element>web-app</root-element>
<uri>WEB-INF/web.xml</uri>
</module-descriptor>
<module-descriptor
external="true">
<root-element>wldf-resource</root-element>
<uri>META-INF/weblogic-diagnostics.xml</uri>
</module-descriptor>
</module-override>
<config-root>C:\Documents
and Settings\xprk477\Desktop\deploy_plan\plan</config-root>
</deployment-plan>
I
just modified the web-context from “simpleSample” to “songissong”
. In order to override the context root we need to do a replace
operation in the variable assignment since the element already exists
in the archive.
Now
we need to update the current application with the changes we made to
the plan ,
Go
to Deployments -> select the Application “SimpleSample” ->
click Update
In
the next window we will see “Deployment plan path:” , select
“Change Path” and select the updated the deployment plan.xml file
and click Next. Select Finish
Now
test your application and we will see that the context element is
changed.
Happy
learning , More to Come
