Difference between EAR file and SAP EAR file?

[thomas_lelievre-damit]

Hey experts,

I'm currently developing and deploying ear and ejb projects to work with adapter modules. It's not a problem for me to change and deploy new modules by right-clicking and running it on the development PO server from NWDS.

I'm required though to give the compiled ear files to another team for deployment on other java stacks. This means I need to export but NWDS 7.3 gives me 2 options: EAR file or SAP EAR file.

What is the difference? Are there requirements depending on the version of PI/PO you're deploying on?

Kind regards,

Thomas

[vadimklimov · Accepted solution]

Hi Thomas,

SAP EAR file export wizard prepares common Java EAR file and adds SAP specific metadata files into it - like SAP_MANIFEST.MF (manifest enriched with SAP specific attributes like SAP components specifications, etc.) and sda-dd.xml (SDA deployment descriptor).

For SAP specific Java development, it is recommended to use SAP EAR file export wizard and not EAR file export wizard when you need to generate EAR file, since it will produce consistent artefacts in the assembled EAR file, ready for further deployment to SAP application server Java.

Regards,

Vadim

[thomas_lelievre-damit · Accepted solution]

Hey Vadim,

Thank you for your answer. So basically in most cases the safest bet is the SAP EAR file export, especially since in this one a third party is responsible for further deployment on the SAP Java AS.

Any idea why the regular EAR file export is still available? I'd guess it's an option coming from the basic eclipse installation.

Kind regards,

Thomas

[vadimklimov · Accepted solution]

Hi Thomas,

If you or your partner are doing SAP specific Java development task (e.g. adapter module development, Java Scheduler job development, etc.) targeted at further bundling in EAR file and deployment to SAP application server Java, then yes, assembly and generation of the deployable EAR file is recommended to be done using SAP EAR file export wizard.

An advanced option is: if you use centralized development governance and infrastructure (for example, you have NWDI in your landscape), then building deployable files (like building development components, generation of EAR and other deployables) shall become a task of NWDI rather than of an individual developer in their local NWDS.

Both SAP EAR file export and EAR file export exist in NWDS, because EAR file export is a feature of an Eclipse platform (and since NWDS is based on Eclipse platform, you can find features of the original Eclipse IDE in NWDS - they are not disabled in NWDS shipment) and SAP EAR file is a SAP specific feature (that was developed by SAP and embedded into a distributed NWDS package).

Regards,

Vadim