Access to Shared Frameworks

When Java EE applications and modules use shared framework classes (such as utility classes and libraries) the classes can be put in the path for the System Classloader, the Common Classloader, or an application-specific class loader rather than in an application or module. If you assemble a large, shared library into every module that uses it, the result is a huge file that takes too long to register with the server. In addition, several versions of the same class could exist in different classloaders, which is a waste of resources. For more information, see Chapter 2, Class Loaders, in Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v2.1.1 Developer’s Guide.