Installing enterprise application files by adding them to a monitored directory

The WebSphere Application Server 8.0 introduces this new feature, in which you can copy enterprise application file in the monitoredDirectory and it automatically gets installed on the server. This feature is similar to concept of copying .war file in the webapps directory. I wanted to try this feature, so i followed these steps

• The monitored directory feature is disabled by default so the first step would be to enable this feature, for that login into WAS Admin Console and go to Applications -> Global Deployment settings.
  
  
  On this page the Monitor directory to automatically deploy applications check box is unchecked by default, so check it. Then you can either use the default path for the monitored directory which is app_profile_root/monitoredDeployableApps or you can change this path to something else, save the changes and restart the server


• Once the server is restarted you will notice that app_profile_root/monitoredDeployableApps gets created for you
  
  


• I did export HelloMonitoredDirectoryEAR.ear into the monitoredDirectory
  
  


• After copying the .ear into monitoredDirectory i was looking at the logs and i could notice that it is being picked up for deployment
  
[7/5/11 12:32:35:944 PDT] 00000013 WatchService I CWLDD0007I: Event id 1937700630-1. Start of processing. Event type: Added, File path: C:\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\AppSrv01\monitoredDeployableApps\servers\server1\HelloMonitoredDirectoryEAR.ear.
[7/5/11 12:32:36:022 PDT] 00000013 ModelMgr I WSVR0801I: Initializing all server configuration models
[7/5/11 12:32:37:303 PDT] 00000013 WorkSpaceMana A WKSP0500I: Workspace configuration consistency check is disabled.
[7/5/11 12:32:38:475 PDT] 00000013 AppManagement I CWLDD0028I: Event id 1937700630-1. The target of the current operation is [WebSphere:cell=ascendan-ggbz6iNode01Cell,node=ascendan-ggbz6iNode01,server=server1].
[7/5/11 12:32:38:553 PDT] 00000013 AppManagement I CWLDD0014I: Event id 1937700630-1. Installing application HelloMonitoredDirectoryEAR...
[7/5/11 12:32:40:022 PDT] 00000013 annotations I ArchiveInputStreamData mapData Collision on [ WEB-INF/classes/com/webspherenotes/test/HelloMonitoredServlet.class ] in [ HelloMonitoredDirectory.war ]
[7/5/11 12:32:43:631 PDT] 00000014 annotations I ArchiveInputStreamData mapData Collision on [ WEB-INF/classes/com/webspherenotes/test/HelloMonitoredServlet.class ] in [ HelloMonitoredDirectory.war ]
[7/5/11 12:32:55:645 PDT] 00000014 webcontainer I com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.internal.WebContainer addExtensionFactory SRVE0239I: Extension Factory [class com.ibm.ws.soa.sca.web.extension.SCAWebExtensionFactory] was registered successfully.
[7/5/11 12:32:55:676 PDT] 00000014 webcontainer I com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.internal.WebContainer addExtensionFactory SRVE0240I: Extension Factory [class com.ibm.ws.soa.sca.web.extension.SCAWebExtensionFactory] has been associated with patterns [""].
[7/5/11 12:32:55:692 PDT] 00000014 WebSphereSCAS I Added Servlet mapping: /dojo
[7/5/11 12:32:55:692 PDT] 00000014 WebSphereSCAS I Added Servlet mapping: /dojo
[7/5/11 12:32:55:692 PDT] 00000014 WebSphereSCAS I Added Servlet mapping: /tuscany
[7/5/11 12:32:55:692 PDT] 00000014 WebSphereSCAS I Added Servlet mapping: /tuscany
[7/5/11 12:32:58:848 PDT] 00000014 annotations I ArchiveInputStreamData mapData Collision on [ WEB-INF/classes/com/webspherenotes/test/HelloMonitoredServlet.class ] in [ HelloMonitoredDirectory.war ]
[7/5/11 12:32:58:957 PDT] 00000014 InstallSchedu I ADMA5013I: Application HelloMonitoredDirectoryEAR installed successfully.
[7/5/11 12:33:03:223 PDT] 00000013 annotations I ArchiveInputStreamData mapData Collision on [ WEB-INF/classes/com/webspherenotes/test/HelloMonitoredServlet.class ] in [ HelloMonitoredDirectory.war ]
[7/5/11 12:33:04:144 PDT] 00000013 annotations I ArchiveInputStreamData mapData Collision on [ WEB-INF/classes/com/webspherenotes/test/HelloMonitoredServlet.class ] in [ HelloMonitoredDirectory.war ]
[7/5/11 12:33:04:207 PDT] 00000013 annotations E CWWAM0001E: An exception occurred during annotation processing: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: The feature 'annotated-classes' is not a valid feature

  
• I did wait for couple of minutes and then i checked the WAS Admin console and i could see newly installed application like this
  
  
  


• I wanted to see where exactly the application is getting installed so i looked at the value of application binaries and i can see that it got installed in regular installedApp directory