Deploying ADF Applications as Shared Libraries on WLS

Today I have new post from Integration series. Most of the ADF applications are developed using multiple ADF Task Flows packaged into different ADF libraries. When we consume ADF libraries, by default these libraries are included into resulting EAR deployment package. In most of the cases it works well, however on large production deployments, customers ask to externalize and exclude ADF libraries from main site deployment package. This allows to redeploy shared ADF libraries without main site redeployment. Multiple applications can consume shared libraries, without packaging them into each EAR package. There is George Maggessy blog post about ADF Task Flows and Shared libraries on WLS - post. I will dive more deeper into this topic and will provide sample application. With my next blog posts I will describe how to:

1. Redeploy and Version shared libraries
2. Perform Production redeployment for main site EAR package, without restarting the server

Download sample application - ADFIntegrationUIShell4.zip. This sample provides UIShell application to integrate four different ADF Task Flows coming from ADF libraries. These libraries will be deployed as single shared library on WLS:

You need to package all these four libraries into single WAR file, to deploy it as a single shared library containing ADF jars. For this purpose, it is enough to create new JDeveloper application with simple generic project:

Include all four libraries into SharedWeb project. You should see them under libraries entries:

Ensure you specify empty context root path in WAR deployment profile:

You need to create and set MANIFEST.MF file to describe shared library:

Sample MANIFEST.MF file, with shared library name set to redsamurai.shared.lib:

When deploying WAR package, select Deploy as a shared Library option. JDeveloper will generate WAR archive with META-INF (manifest file) and WEB-INF (ADF libraries) folders:

After successful deployment, shared library redsamurai.shared.lib will be listed under WLS deployments:

In order to compile main application in JDeveloper, you need to add ADF libraries references:

However, these libraries should not be packaged inside EAR archive during deployment. For this purpose, uncheck them from WAR contributors for main application:

One of the last required configurations for consuming application - create (if it doesn't exist already) weblogic.xml deployment descriptor file under WEB-INF:

Register shared library redsamurai.shared.lib reference in weblogic.xml, this will allow to access it on runtime:

Now deploy main application as EAR package on WLS:

We can unpack generated EAR file and can see that weblogic.xml was updated during EAR generation process with ADF shared libraries references. Our shared library reference is present as well:

On runtime, through Oracle UIShell template we can load dynamic regions from ADF Task Flows, packaged and deployed into WLS shared library:

Both - main application and shared library package are visible under WLS deployment list: