This may be a simple fix, may not. My Environment:

Jenkins v2.17
WebSphere-Deployer v1.4.2 (beta)
WAS ND v7.0.0.41
Connection Test is successful.
JARs have been copied.
certs have been added to $JENKINS_HOME/keystore
WAS ND self-assigned cert has been added to $JENKINS_HOME/keystore/cacert
$JENKINS_HOME/keystore/cacert has been added to JENKINS_JAVA_ARGS

I unintentionally lied. It was passing the connection test before I upgraded Deployer to 1.4.2 (from 1.3.4), but now it's stuck at the connection test.

javax.servlet.ServletException: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/ibm/websphere/management/exception/AdminException
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Stapler.tryInvoke(Stapler.java:796)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Stapler.invoke(Stapler.java:876)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.MetaClass$5.doDispatch(MetaClass.java:233)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.NameBasedDispatcher.dispatch(NameBasedDispatcher.java:58)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Stapler.tryInvoke(Stapler.java:746)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Stapler.invoke(Stapler.java:876)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.MetaClass$5.doDispatch(MetaClass.java:233)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.NameBasedDispatcher.dispatch(NameBasedDispatcher.java:58)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Stapler.tryInvoke(Stapler.java:746)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Stapler.invoke(Stapler.java:876)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.MetaClass$5.doDispatch(MetaClass.java:233)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.NameBasedDispatcher.dispatch(NameBasedDispatcher.java:58)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Stapler.tryInvoke(Stapler.java:746)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Stapler.invoke(Stapler.java:876)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Stapler.invoke(Stapler.java:649)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Stapler.service(Stapler.java:238)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:790)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.handle(ServletHolder.java:812)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1669)
at hudson.util.PluginServletFilter$1.doFilter(PluginServletFilter.java:135)
at org.jenkinsci.plugins.ssegateway.Endpoint$SSEListenChannelFilter.doFilter(Endpoint.java:249)
at hudson.util.PluginServletFilter$1.doFilter(PluginServletFilter.java:132)
at javax.servlet.FilterChain$doFilter.call(Unknown Source)
at com.ceilfors.jenkins.plugins.jiratrigger.ExceptionLoggingFilter.doFilter(ExceptionLoggingFilter.groovy:22)
at hudson.util.PluginServletFilter$1.doFilter(PluginServletFilter.java:132)
at jenkins.metrics.impl.MetricsFilter.doFilter(MetricsFilter.java:125)
at hudson.util.PluginServletFilter$1.doFilter(PluginServletFilter.java:132)
at hudson.util.PluginServletFilter.doFilter(PluginServletFilter.java:126)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1652)
at hudson.security.csrf.CrumbFilter.doFilter(CrumbFilter.java:80)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1652)
at hudson.security.ChainedServletFilter$1.doFilter(ChainedServletFilter.java:84)
at hudson.security.UnwrapSecurityExceptionFilter.doFilter(UnwrapSecurityExceptionFilter.java:51)
at hudson.security.ChainedServletFilter$1.doFilter(ChainedServletFilter.java:87)
at jenkins.security.ExceptionTranslationFilter.doFilter(ExceptionTranslationFilter.java:117)
at hudson.security.ChainedServletFilter$1.doFilter(ChainedServletFilter.java:87)
at org.acegisecurity.providers.anonymous.AnonymousProcessingFilter.doFilter(AnonymousProcessingFilter.java:125)
at hudson.security.ChainedServletFilter$1.doFilter(ChainedServletFilter.java:87)
at org.acegisecurity.ui.rememberme.RememberMeProcessingFilter.doFilter(RememberMeProcessingFilter.java:142)
at hudson.security.ChainedServletFilter$1.doFilter(ChainedServletFilter.java:87)
at org.acegisecurity.ui.AbstractProcessingFilter.doFilter(AbstractProcessingFilter.java:271)
at hudson.security.ChainedServletFilter$1.doFilter(ChainedServletFilter.java:87)
at jenkins.security.BasicHeaderProcessor.doFilter(BasicHeaderProcessor.java:93)
at hudson.security.ChainedServletFilter$1.doFilter(ChainedServletFilter.java:87)
at org.acegisecurity.context.HttpSessionContextIntegrationFilter.doFilter(HttpSessionContextIntegrationFilter.java:249)
at hudson.security.HttpSessionContextIntegrationFilter2.doFilter(HttpSessionContextIntegrationFilter2.java:67)
at hudson.security.ChainedServletFilter$1.doFilter(ChainedServletFilter.java:87)
at hudson.security.ChainedServletFilter.doFilter(ChainedServletFilter.java:76)
at hudson.security.HudsonFilter.doFilter(HudsonFilter.java:171)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1652)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.compression.CompressionFilter.doFilter(CompressionFilter.java:49)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1652)
at hudson.util.CharacterEncodingFilter.doFilter(CharacterEncodingFilter.java:82)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1652)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.DiagnosticThreadNameFilter.doFilter(DiagnosticThreadNameFilter.java:30)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1652)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.doHandle(ServletHandler.java:585)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ScopedHandler.handle(ScopedHandler.java:143)
at org.eclipse.jetty.security.SecurityHandler.handle(SecurityHandler.java:553)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.SessionHandler.doHandle(SessionHandler.java:223)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.doHandle(ContextHandler.java:1127)
at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.doScope(ServletHandler.java:515)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.SessionHandler.doScope(SessionHandler.java:185)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.doScope(ContextHandler.java:1061)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ScopedHandler.handle(ScopedHandler.java:141)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.HandlerWrapper.handle(HandlerWrapper.java:97)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server.handle(Server.java:499)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.HttpChannel.handle(HttpChannel.java:311)
at org.eclipse.jetty.server.HttpConnection.onFillable(HttpConnection.java:257)
at org.eclipse.jetty.io.AbstractConnection$2.run(AbstractConnection.java:544)
at winstone.BoundedExecutorService$1.run(BoundedExecutorService.java:77)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/ibm/websphere/management/exception/AdminException
at org.jenkinsci.plugins.websphere_deployer.WebSphereDeployerPlugin$DescriptorImpl.doTestConnection(WebSphereDeployerPlugin.java:450)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Function$InstanceFunction.invoke(Function.java:324)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Function.bindAndInvoke(Function.java:167)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Function.bindAndInvokeAndServeResponse(Function.java:100)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.MetaClass$1.doDispatch(MetaClass.java:124)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.NameBasedDispatcher.dispatch(NameBasedDispatcher.java:58)
at org.kohsuke.stapler.Stapler.tryInvoke(Stapler.java:746)
... 73 more
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.ibm.websphere.management.exception.AdminException
at hudson.ClassicPluginStrategy$DependencyClassLoader.findClass(ClassicPluginStrategy.java:782)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.tools.ant.AntClassLoader.findBaseClass(AntClassLoader.java:1387)
at org.apache.tools.ant.AntClassLoader.loadClass(AntClassLoader.java:1080)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
... 84 more

Any thoughts?