upload file in jsf 2.2

upload file in jsf 2.2

Using my company's chosen cloud storage api and just starting out with JSF
2.2. Trying to build a simple image upload web app and it works when I run
locally using Eclipse.
Here's the code: .xhtml page
<h:form id="form" enctype="multipart/form-data" prependId="false">
Select id Photo: <h:inputFile id="file"
value="#{customerEntity.uploadedFile}"/>
<h:commandButton value="Query Cloud"
action="#{customerEntity.addActionController}"/>
</h:form>
customerEntity.java code:
private Part uploadedFile;
private String fileURI;
On local machine, code to extract file name from Part object uploadedFile
produces correct file locator (eg. c:\pictures\mypix.jpg) for local access
on my machine.
However, when I load into tomcat 7 running in a cloud vm, the application
fails with a FileNotFound in the 'try' block:
File source = new File(this.fileURI);
try {
cloud.upload(new FileInputStream(source), source.length());
My debug statements show it's using the file locator from my local pc
which clearly doesn't exist on the server. I can't figure out how to get
the local file data streamed to the code running on the server.
As a slight jsf newbie, I'm sure it's something obvious, but can't figure
it out or resolve via some of the other posts I've seen.
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!