Deploying the ADF Application - Oracle ADF 11gR2 Development Beginner's Guide - page 233

Web Applicaion Archive (WAR) : Web archive is a package of all the web-related
files. The Web Archive opion is available from the Viewcontroller project that
contains the web resources. All files such as .html , .jspx , .jsff , and .jsf are
packaged as WAR files. The file structure contains a WEB-INF folder that contains
adfc-config.xml , web.xml , weblogic.xml , faces-config.xml , trinidad-
config.xml , and so on. The classes folder contains the Java classes such as
backing or managed bean added in the UI project. The lib folder will include
all the dependent libraries that are required to compile the web archive file.
Metadata Archive (MAR) : This archive will package all the metadata files needed
for the customizaion of the web pages. Customizaion includes a few XML iles that
will have the delta details for different users. The metadata archive will package
the XML iles along with the coniguraion iles to support the user customizaion.
More about this will be discussed in Chapter 11 , Advanced Features of ADF .
Enterprise Archive (EAR) : Most of the web applicaions which involve model data
interacion will be packaged using the enterprise archive. The business logic which
interacts with the data layer and the presentaion layer is collecively bundled into
a single archive. The presentaion layer informaion is bundled internally using the
web archive and then it is added to the enterprise archive. The folder structure of
an EAR will be as follows:
adf
META-INF
adf-config.xml
connections.xml
lib
META-INF
application.xml
cwallet.sso
HRSchema-jdbc.xml
jps-config.xml
weblogic-application.xml
ViewController_Webapp.war