Deploy DayTrader 7 on Open Liberty with Derby or DB2

DayTrader 7 supports two local deployment modes. For quick development and functional testing, the application ships with a pre-built embedded Derby database that requires no external infrastructure — just a JDK and Maven. For production benchmarking and performance testing, DayTrader 7 connects to an external DB2 server via the server_db2.xml configuration, enabling full load-test workloads with Apache JMeter and realistic database concurrency tuning.

Option 1: Development with Derby

The Derby path is the fastest way to get DayTrader 7 running. The embedded database and a pre-populated dataset are bundled in resources/data, so no separate database setup is needed.

Prerequisites

JDK 8 or later
Apache Maven 3 or later

Steps

Build the project

From the root of the cloned repository, run the Maven install goal. This compiles all modules, runs tests, and provisions a local Open Liberty server under daytrader-ee7/target/liberty/:

mvn install

Start Open Liberty

Change into the daytrader-ee7 module and launch the server with the liberty:run goal, which starts Liberty in the foreground and tails the logs:

cd daytrader-ee7
mvn liberty:run

Open the application

Once Liberty reports that the server is ready, navigate to:

http://localhost:9082/daytrader

The server also listens for HTTPS traffic on port 9443.

Initialize the database

On first run, visit the configuration page and populate the trade database:

http://localhost:9082/daytrader/configure.html

Click “(Re)-create DayTrader Database Tables and Indexes”, then click “(Re)-populate DayTrader Database”.

Server configuration (Derby)

The Derby deployment uses server.xml. Key settings relevant to local development are shown below:

<server>
  <featureManager>
    <feature>ejb-3.2</feature>
    <feature>servlet-3.1</feature>
    <feature>jsf-2.2</feature>
    <feature>jpa-2.1</feature>
    <feature>mdb-3.2</feature>
    <feature>wasJmsServer-1.0</feature>
    <feature>wasJmsClient-2.0</feature>
    <feature>cdi-1.2</feature>
    <feature>websocket-1.1</feature>
    <feature>concurrent-1.0</feature>
    <feature>jsonp-1.0</feature>
    <feature>beanValidation-1.1</feature>
    <feature>localConnector-1.0</feature>
  </featureManager>

  <!-- HTTP on 9082, HTTPS on 9443 -->
  <httpEndpoint host="*" httpPort="9082" httpsPort="9443" id="defaultHttpEndpoint">
    <tcpOptions soReuseAddr="true"/>
    <httpOptions maxKeepAliveRequests="-1"/>
  </httpEndpoint>

  <application id="daytrader7" location="daytrader-ee7.ear" name="daytrader7"/>

  <!-- Connection pool: 100 min/max connections, no idle timeout -->
  <connectionManager agedTimeout="-1" connectionTimeout="0" id="conMgr1"
    maxIdleTime="-1" maxPoolSize="100" minPoolSize="100"
    purgePolicy="FailingConnectionOnly" reapTime="-1"/>

  <jdbcDriver id="DerbyEmbedded" libraryRef="DerbyLib"/>
  <library filesetRef="DerbyFileset" id="DerbyLib"/>
  <fileset dir="${shared.resource.dir}/DerbyLibs" id="DerbyFileset"
    includes="derby-10.14.2.0.jar"/>

  <dataSource connectionManagerRef="conMgr1" id="DefaultDataSource"
    isolationLevel="TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITTED" jdbcDriverRef="DerbyEmbedded"
    jndiName="jdbc/TradeDataSource" statementCacheSize="60">
    <properties.derby.embedded createDatabase="create"
      databaseName="${shared.resource.dir}/data/tradedb"
      password="db_password" user="db_username"/>
  </dataSource>
</server>

The connection pool is configured with maxPoolSize=100 and minPoolSize=100. Liberty pre-allocates all 100 connections at startup, so the first request may be slightly slower while the pool warms up.

Option 2: Production / Benchmarking with DB2

This setup mirrors the recommended load-testing topology described in README_LOAD_TEST.md. It uses server_db2.xml (copied over as server.xml) so Liberty connects to an external DB2 instance over JDBC Type 4.

Prerequisites

Open Liberty installed and a defaultServer profile created at <OPENLIBERTY_HOME>
A running DB2 server with a TRADEDB database created
DB2 JDBC driver files copied from the DB2 machine:
- db2jcc4.jar
- db2jcc_license_cu.jar

Steps

Build DayTrader 7

From the repository root, build the EAR artifact:

mvn clean install

Deploy the EAR to Liberty

Copy the compiled EAR to the Liberty apps directory:

cp daytrader-ee7/target/daytrader-ee7.ear \
  <OPENLIBERTY_HOME>/usr/servers/defaultServer/apps/

Install the DB2 server configuration

Replace the default server.xml with the DB2-specific configuration:

cp daytrader-ee7/src/main/liberty/config/server_db2.xml \
  <OPENLIBERTY_HOME>/usr/servers/defaultServer/server.xml

Copy DB2 JDBC jars

Place the DB2 driver files where Liberty can find them:

mkdir -p <OPENLIBERTY_HOME>/usr/shared/db2jars
cp db2jcc4.jar          <OPENLIBERTY_HOME>/usr/shared/db2jars/
cp db2jcc_license_cu.jar <OPENLIBERTY_HOME>/usr/shared/db2jars/

Set environment variables

Export the five variables that server_db2.xml resolves at runtime. Match values to your environment:

export dbUser=db2inst1
export dbPass=<your_db2_password>
export tradeDbHost=<db2_hostname_or_ip>
export tradeDbPort=50000
export tradeDbName=TRADEDB

Variable	Description
`dbUser`	DB2 user name Liberty uses to authenticate
`dbPass`	Password for `dbUser`
`tradeDbHost`	Hostname or IP of the DB2 server
`tradeDbPort`	DB2 listener port (default `50000`)
`tradeDbName`	DB2 database name (default `TRADEDB`)

You can hard-code these values directly in server.xml instead of using environment variables if you prefer a self-contained configuration file.

Create jvm.options

Create <OPENLIBERTY_HOME>/usr/servers/defaultServer/jvm.options and set the heap size. The following values are recommended as a starting point for load testing:

-Xms1024m
-Xmx1024m

Create and populate the DB2 database

On the DB2 machine, sign in as the db2 user and create the trade database:

db2 create db tradedb

If DB2_APM_PERFORMANCE is enabled, DB2 will return SQL1803N during database creation. Disable it first:

db2set DB2_APM_PERFORMANCE=
db2stop
db2start

Start Liberty and initialize the database

Start the Liberty server:

<OPENLIBERTY_HOME>/bin/server start

Then open the DayTrader configuration page in a browser and populate the database:

http://<openliberty-hostname>:9082/daytrader/configure.html

Click “(Re)-create DayTrader Database Tables and Indexes”, then “(Re)-populate DayTrader Database”.

Server configuration (DB2)

server_db2.xml replaces the Derby driver and data-source definitions with DB2 JDBC Type 4 equivalents that resolve credentials and connection details from environment variables:

<server>
  <featureManager>
    <feature>ejb-3.2</feature>
    <feature>servlet-3.1</feature>
    <feature>jsf-2.2</feature>
    <feature>jpa-2.1</feature>
    <feature>mdb-3.2</feature>
    <feature>wasJmsServer-1.0</feature>
    <feature>wasJmsClient-2.0</feature>
    <feature>cdi-1.2</feature>
    <feature>websocket-1.1</feature>
    <feature>concurrent-1.0</feature>
    <feature>jsonp-1.0</feature>
    <feature>beanValidation-1.1</feature>
    <feature>localConnector-1.0</feature>
  </featureManager>

  <httpEndpoint host="*" httpPort="9082" httpsPort="9443" id="defaultHttpEndpoint">
    <tcpOptions soReuseAddr="true"/>
    <httpOptions maxKeepAliveRequests="-1"/>
  </httpEndpoint>

  <application id="daytrader7" location="daytrader-ee7.ear" name="daytrader7"/>

  <connectionManager agedTimeout="-1" connectionTimeout="0" id="conMgr1"
    maxIdleTime="-1" maxPoolSize="100" minPoolSize="100"
    purgePolicy="FailingConnectionOnly" reapTime="-1"/>

  <jdbcDriver id="DB2JCC" libraryRef="DB2JCCLib"/>
  <library id="DB2JCCLib" filesetRef="DB2JCCFileset"/>
  <fileset id="DB2JCCFileset" dir="${shared.resource.dir}/db2jars" includes="db2jcc4.jar"/>

  <authData id="TradeDataSourceAuthData" user="${dbUser}" password="${dbPass}"/>
  <authData id="TradeAdminAuthData"      user="${dbUser}" password="${dbPass}"/>

  <dataSource jndiName="jdbc/TradeDataSource" jdbcDriverRef="DB2JCC"
    id="DefaultDataSource" connectionManagerRef="conMgr1"
    statementCacheSize="60" isolationLevel="TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITTED"
    type="javax.sql.ConnectionPoolDataSource">
    <properties serverName="${tradeDbHost}" portNumber="${tradeDbPort}"
      databaseName="${tradeDbName}" driverType="4"
      user="${dbUser}" password="${dbPass}"/>
  </dataSource>
</server>

After the first-time database population completes, stop and restart Liberty before running any load tests. This ensures all connection pool and JMS resources are cleanly initialized against the now-populated schema.

Get Started

Deployment

Configuration

Architecture

Load Testing & Benchmarking

Deploy DayTrader 7 on Open Liberty with Derby or DB2

Option 1: Development with Derby

Prerequisites

Steps

Server configuration (Derby)

Option 2: Production / Benchmarking with DB2

Prerequisites

Steps

Server configuration (DB2)

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get Started

Deployment

Configuration

Architecture

Load Testing & Benchmarking

Documentation Index

​Option 1: Development with Derby

​Prerequisites

​Steps

​Server configuration (Derby)

​Option 2: Production / Benchmarking with DB2

​Prerequisites

​Steps

​Server configuration (DB2)

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Option 1: Development with Derby

Prerequisites

Steps

Server configuration (Derby)

Option 2: Production / Benchmarking with DB2

Prerequisites

Steps

Server configuration (DB2)