Infrastructure for Automatic Dynamic Deployment of J2EE Applications in Distributed Environments

Recent studies have shown the potential of using component frameworks for building flexible adaptable applications for deployment in distributed environments. However this approach is hindered by the complexity of deploying component-based applications, which usually involve a great deal of configuration of both the application components and system services they depend on. In this paper we propose an infrastructure for automatic dynamic deployment of J2EE applications, that specifically addresses the problems of (1) inter-component connectivity specification and its effects on component configuration and deployment; and (2) application component dependencies on application server services, their configuration and deployment. The proposed infrastructure provides simple yet expressive abstractions for potential application adaptation through dynamic deployment and undeployment of components. We report on our experience with implementing the infrastructure as a part of the JBoss J2EE application server and testing it on several sample J2EE applications.