Deployment Descriptor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A deployment descriptor (DD) refers to a configuration file for an artifact that is deployed to some container/engine.
In the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition, a deployment descriptor describes how a web application or enterprise application should be deployed. It directs a deployment tool to deploy a module or application with specific container options and describes specific configuration requirements that a deployer must resolve. XML is used for the syntax of these deployment descriptor files. For web applications, the deployment descriptor must be called web.xml and must reside in a WEB-INF subdirectory at the web application root. For Java EE applications, the deployment descriptor must be named application.xml and must be placed directly in the META-INF directory at the top level of the application .ear file.
Another example of a deployment descriptor is a process deployment descriptor for the BPEL-Engine ActiveBPEL.[1]
