Creating shared libraries

When using SCA or Java libraries, the default behavior is to share-by-copy so a copy of each library is placed in each application EAR using them.

When using shared SCA or Java libraries, you are using by-reference sharing. The application EAR contains only a reference to the libraries but doesn't include the actual library JAR files. The shared libraries are deployed separately and can be used by multiple applications.

Depending on the size of the libraries, number of assets, and number of deployed modules, the share-by-copy module can result in a larger memory footprint. Sharing these assets by-reference can reduce this memory footprint.

When using shared libraries, you can get different classloading behaviors. See Managing WebSphere® shared libraries in the WebSphere Application Server documentation for more details about the shared library features.