SMODL Service deployment.

The SMODL Web Deployment feature from SMODL Development Suite 1.4 introduces a new wizard to automate deployment of a SMODL service (Note: to instal this feature you need Helios JEE Edition). The purpose of this tutorial is to describe briefly how to use this wizard.

In this tutorial we start with CRUD service. You can find how to create it here (sections 1-4). Normally to deploy a SMODL service you need: 1) create a dynamic web application; 2) create a servlet (usign the SmodlHttpServlet or extending it); 3) set all JEE module dependencies (see SMODL Service Tutorial). The wizard described here automates the above tasks. Current version limitation: the wizard does not extend SmodlHttpServlet. This servlet is always used for deployment.

To activate the wizard you right-click on the implementation of the service and select "Deploy SMODL service" item from the menu.

The first page of the wizard allows either to give a name to a new dynamic web project or to select any existing dynamic web project. As a default name the wizard uses combination service name from smodl file + Web. In our case it is CRUDWeb. If you want to use existing dynamic web project project just click on the checkbox and select the project from drop-down list. Click the "Next>" button to switch to the second page.

The second page allows to enter uri-mapping for the servlet. The wizard always create a new servlet but uri-mapping is provided by a user. There is a default uri-mapping /service/*. Also there is an option to use existing uri-mapping. If you use this option you should know that some other servlet may use this uri-mapping. So if you use the existing uri-mapping the other servlet may become unavailable.

Once you pushed the "Finish" button the wizard creates a new dynamic web project or updates the existing one. When the wizard is done you have the dynamic web project ready to be published. As for JEE dependencies the wizards adds Web SMODL library (contains SmodlHttpServlet) to the web project. Also it adds to JEE dependencies the Java project containing the implementation of the service. The wizard checks the build path of this Java projects and adds all entries with the attribute exported=true to JEE dependencies. If one of this entries is another Java project the wizard also check its build path and adds all exported entries to JEE dependencies. The wizard repeats the same for all found exported Java projects. If any found Java project has already JEE dependencies set then the wizard proceeds without any change to the JEE dependencies for such Java project.

The last screenshot shows the added dynamic web project. If you have a server configured for your workspace you can publish the SMODL service immediately. So using this wizard you can deploy your SMODL service with few mouse clicks.