Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 8.1 2005Q2 Update 2 Developer's Guide

Deployment by Module or Application

You can deploy applications or individual modules that are independent of applications. The runtime and file system implications of application-based or individual module-based deployment are described in Runtime Environments.

Individual module-based deployment is preferable when components need to be accessed by:

Modules can be combined into an EAR file and then deployed as a single module. This is similar to deploying the modules of the EAR independently.