weblogic server deployment -stage mode

- Stage mode—The Administration Server copies the archive files from their source location to a location on each of the targeted Managed Servers that deploy the archive. For example, if you deploy a J2EE Application to three servers in a cluster, the Administration Server copies the application archive files to each of the three servers. Each server then deploys the J2EE Application using its local copy of the archive files. 
Stage mode is the default mode when deploying to more than one WebLogic Server instance. 

- Nostage mode—The Administration Server does not copy the archive files from their source location. Instead, each targeted server must access the archive files from a single source directory for deployment. For example, if you deploy a J2EE Application to three servers in a cluster, each server must be able to access the same application archive files (from a shared or network-mounted directory) to deploy the application. 
Nostage mode is the default mode when deploying only to the Administration Server (for example, in a single-server domain). You can also select nostage mode if you run a cluster of server instances on the same machine. 

- External_stage mode—External_stage mode is similar to stage mode, in that the deployment files must reside locally to each targeted server. However, the Administration Server does not automatically copy the deployment files to targeted servers in external_stage mode; instead, you must manually copy the files, or use a third-party application to copy the files for you.