34.3 Deployment Techniques

Table 34-1 describes some common deployment techniques that you can use during the application development and deployment cycle. The table lists the deployment techniques in order from deploying on development environments to deploying on production environments. It is likely that in the production environment, the system administrators deploy applications using scripting tools.

Table 34-1 Deployment Techniques

Deployment Technique	When to Use
Deploy directly from JDeveloper	This technique is typically used when you are developing your application. When you are developing the application, you may want to deploy it quickly for testing. You want deployment to be quick because you will be repeating the editing and deploying process many times. JDeveloper comes with an embedded OC4J server, on which you can run and test your application. You should also deploy your application to an external application server to test it.
Deploy to EAR file, then use the target application server's tools for deployment	This technique is typically used when you are ready to deploy and test your application on an application server in a test environment. On the test server, you can test features (such as LDAP and OracleAS Single Sign-On) that are not available on the development server. You can also use the test environment to develop your deployment scripts. The scripts may involve Ant.
Use a script to deploy applications	This technique is typically used on test and production environments. On production environments, system administrators usually run scripts to deploy applications.

Deployment Technique

When to Use

Deploy directly from JDeveloper

This technique is typically used when you are developing your application.

When you are developing the application, you may want to deploy it quickly for testing. You want deployment to be quick because you will be repeating the editing and deploying process many times.

JDeveloper comes with an embedded OC4J server, on which you can run and test your application. You should also deploy your application to an external application server to test it.

Deploy to EAR file, then use the target application server's tools for deployment

This technique is typically used when you are ready to deploy and test your application on an application server in a test environment. On the test server, you can test features (such as LDAP and OracleAS Single Sign-On) that are not available on the development server.

You can also use the test environment to develop your deployment scripts. The scripts may involve Ant.

Use a script to deploy applications

This technique is typically used on test and production environments. On production environments, system administrators usually run scripts to deploy applications.