Tom,
First, you have to use IBM’s JDK because it is heavily modified for WebSphere. No other JDK will work. Be sure to configure the connector to point to the top level of the JDK installation, not the internal jre subdirectory. Once that’s configured, just try starting and stopping WebSphere before you worry about deployment. Once that’s going…
To deploy to websphere for the first time:
1) Use our deployer and specify ‘archive’ deployment. This will place your application in the ‘installable apps’ directory.
2) Use the WebSphere administration console to deploy your app by stepping through its reams of wizard pages.
3) Test that your app has been installed by excercising it.
4) Once you’ve installed one time, you can then switch your deployment model to ‘exploded’ deployment and redeploy your application.
5) From that point forward the exploded deployer will update websphere’s exploded version of your application in the websphere working directory.
I know it’s convoluted, but it’s WebSphere. 😉
–Scott
MyEclipse Support