EJB™ Architecture

1
Agenda

• Why EJB™?
– Technologies leading up to EJB™.
– Goals of EJB.
• What is EJB™?
– EJB™ architecture.
• How do you develop, assemble, and deploy
enterprise beans?
– Roles.
• Who supports EJB™?
– Application server providers, bean
developers and assemblers.
• An example scenario.
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

2
 EJB™: Architecture for Distributed
Transactional Components

•Enterprise JavaBeans™: architecture for server

side distributed transactional components

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

§The Enterprise JavaBeans architecture defines the design for the

development and deployment of reusable and portable distributed
transactional Java Server Components.
§The EJB™ Architecture defines a set of standard vendor-
independent interfaces for all Java Application Servers (which
provide the framework for EJB™ s).
–EJB™ s allow building of distributed applications by combining
components developed using tools from different vendors
–EJB™ s free application developers from having to understand
low-level transaction and state management details; multi-
threading; resource pooling; and other complex low-level APIs.

3
Evolution of Distributed
Transactional Computing

• Overview of technologies leading up to

EJB™
• Mainframe-> 2 tier->3tier
• Distributed protocols
• Distributed objects
• Application servers

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

4
 Mainframe or Single Tier

• Data access, presentation, and business logic

in one monolithic application.
• functionality is tightly coupled
• Makes code re-use, code maintenance, and
code changes difficult.
• Not distributable , not scaleable

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

The history of computing is punctuated with an oscillation between 2 models of computing,

centralized and de-centralized. The computing model from the dawn of the computing age
until the late 1970’s was clearly one of centralization. It should be noted that these monolithic
software applications were difficult to program and maintain.
Single tier, Monolithic application:
•dumb terminal, mainframe, database with TP monitors. All data access, business, and
presentation logic are on one computer.
Advantages:
• relatively easy to manage
•data consistency is simple because data is stored in only one place.
Disadvantages:
•single-tier systems have limited scalability
•Availability depends on one machine (if mainframe is down, whole business goes down).
•No separation made between data access, presentation, and business logic. This doesn't
facilitate code re-use because all functionality is mixed together.
•Changing data or business logic may affect every part of the application, making changes
(new functionality,bug fixes) of software more difficult.

5
 Traditional Client/server

SQL
Data
SQL DB
Data

•Presentation,Business and Data Model

processing Logic in Client Application
•SQL queries sent, raw data returned.

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

This changed in the 1980s with the advent of client-server computing, which was brought about by the
arrival of the PC. With smarter clients, you could have logic running on the client and nicer GUIs. This
era of computing marked a shift to the decentralized model of computing. Also, the task of programming
became easier, as PC development environments evolved.
Two Tier, Client Server:
•PC Client, Database Server
•"Fat" Client contains GUI Presentation Logic and Business Logic, and Data Access code,
•Client uses database API's for transactions.
Advantages:
•Nice user interface, powerful gui tools
Disadvantages:
•Data Access logic mixed with Business Logic (on client) makes reuse difficult.
•DB connection for every client process causes Scalability issues, DataBase Server can be bottleneck
•Application and database drivers must be installed and configured on each client.
•versioning,software distribution and maintenance of "fat" clients to lots of PCs very difficult, any change
means re-installing on every client.

6
 Traditional Client/server: Fat Client

Fat Client: fat

Presentation logic fat
Business logic
Business data model
Communication SQL
§ Functionality intertwined, difficult for updates and
maintenance
§ Data Model is “tightly coupled” to every client
§ If DB Schema changes, all clients break
§ Updates have to be deployed to all clients making System
maintenance nightmare
§ DB connection for every client process
§ difficult to scale
§ Raw Data transferred to client for processing causes high
network traffic.
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

Disadvantages:
•Fat clients make maintenance and reuse difficult.
•Update and maintenance costs are high, because changes have to be re-
deployed to every client. Any change in the logic must be redistributed to all
clients.
•Fat Clients directly access the DB using SQL queries, meaning they are
tightly bound to the database schema. If the schema changes the client code
must be updated and redeployed to all clients.
•Poor network performance because all data is transferred for processing at
the client.
•Database connection costs are high because there is one database connection
per user with no connection pooling or multiplexing.

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 3 Tier and RPC

Server
DB
RPC SQL

• Thinner client: business data model

separated from UI.
• Business logic in middle tier as “services”.
• Standard communication protocol: RPC (but
not object-oriented).
• More difficult to program because
programmers need to manage
multithreaded concurrency, transactions,
security… ©on server.
Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

3 Tier:
•Middle tier responsible for business logic: business methods run on the server,
and the client requests that the server execute these methods. The client and
server use a protocol that represents a conversation of business “services”,
instead of SQL queries and raw data returned.
•Client: user interface logic
•Database: repository of information
•RPC Remote Procedure Call: standard, transparent way to call procedures
remotely. But not object oriented.
Advantages:
•Client Easier to keep up to date, cheaper client deployment and maintenance.
•Separating Presentation tier, business tier, Database tier, makes it easier to
change one layer without affecting other layers.
•Scalability: Resources can be pooled.
Disadvantages:
•More difficult to program because server programmers need to manage
multithreaded concurrency, transactions, security.

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 3 Tier Distributed Object
Architecture

Object

SQL
RMI, IIOP Object

• Business logic and data model in objects

– Separation of UI from business logic & business data,
schema isolated from clients
• Standard object request protocol: Corba, RMI
• Mid tier handle multiple clients by: multiplexing,
connection pooling, multithreading, concurrent object
processes…
• But can be difficult to program!
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

3 Tier using Objects:

•Corba: Object Request Broker , kind of like like object oriented RPC. Allows
Client objects to communicate with remote objects. Interoperability with wide
variety of software. IIOP is internet inter-orb protocol.
•RMI Java Object request broker. Also like object oriented RPC. Simpler to
use than Corba, only for Java to Java, but now there is RMI over IIOP
allowing java to non-java.
•DCOM: allows binary modules to communicate remotely, like a binary RPC
Advantages:
Same as with the previous slide, with additional re-use possibility provided by
object-oriented design model.
DisAdvantages:
Distributed communication, with multiplexing, connection pooling,
concurrency, transactions, multithreading is difficult to program!

9
 Web Server & CGI

HTML

network
network
CGI application

Database

HTML Web Server

•Browser made distributed computing accessible to everyone.

•CGI not performant and secure
•Perl difficult to program and maintain.
•Other Web Server APIs proprietary.
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

The early 1990’s saw the popularization of the Internet. In terms of enterprise computing, this
had 2 effects, which would seem to be in opposition to each other. First, the Internet allowed
“internetworking”, which broke down the geographical barriers of the enterprise LAN. This in
turn led to a move toward “browser-based” clients, like Mosaic and its commercial cousin,
Netscape. The Internet and the browser made distributed computing accessible to everyone.
The second effect the Internet had on enterprise computing was to reverse the trend of de-
centralization. This happened because of the emergence of HTTP, HTML and the Java™
platform as standards for client-based computing. This created a huge number of “thin” clients
that could be counted on to have the same set of functionality. Because of this defined, but
limited, set of functionality, this created the trend of centralizing business logic on the server.
The server in this context was no longer a mainframe of mini-computer, but any machine
running a web server.
The problem in this model was that there were a myriad of programming and connectivity
models. CGI, NSAPI, and ISAPI to name a few. Also, the web server tended to mitigate
access between the browser-based client and each individual enterprise applications, causing a
programming and maintenance nightmare.
Advantages:
•Web makes applications available everywhere to any desktop with a browser
Disadvantages:
•Mission critical transaction-oriented applications can not be done easily and maintain-ably
with CGI and Perl.

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 Components

Monolithic:
•1 binary file
•Recompiled & Components:
linked for any changes •plug-gable Parts.
•Better design,
•better re-use,
•easier updates
•Implementation separated
from Interface, only Interface
published
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

Monolithic application:
•composed of 1 binary file.
•Any change means recompiling and redeploying the application. This makes it difficult to maintain
because the requirements and environment usually change with time and updates are then needed.
Component Application:
•software components can be changed or updated without recompiling and replacing the entire application,
like hardware components can be changed. Simplifies deployment of updates. Upgrades and bug fixes are easier
to make.
•application is separated into logical separate plug-gable parts like presentation parts, business process
parts, business logic…
•Component models provide a standard interface and mechanism for the components to interact with each other.
Component programming separates the interface from the implementation, meaning that a component’s
implementation can be changed without changing the interface or other components using the interface.
•Components are pre-developed pieces of application code that can be assembled to create an application. By only
publishing the interface, application assemblers do not have to understand how a component is coded, just how to use
the interface, in order to use a component.
•dividing an application into components improves the application’s design. Component programming forces
developers to define the application in terms of well structured objects, which have well defined interfaces so that they
can interact properly with each other.
•business logic can be reused, multiple instances of the same component can be used in multiple applications.
•Updates are easier because you can change a part without changing the whole.
•Development is easier because it allows you to test and build small parts incrementally (spiral development model),
you can also divide development into smaller parts potentially developed by different people.

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 Lessons Learned:

§ Improvements from 1 tier to n-tier:

§ One tier can be changed without changing the
rest.
§ Lower deployment and maintenance costs.
§ Resources (like connections) can be pooled and re-
used.
§ Flexible, scalable, more performant for large #
users.
§ Thin clients can be made available on internet on
browsers on any desktop.
§ But still a problem with this:
§ Requires developer to know complex details of
distributed protocols, concurrency,
transactions, object distribution, load balancing,
security, resource
© management !
Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

•Advantages of n-tier computing:

•One tier can be changed without changing the rest
•Lower deployment and maintenance costs
•Resources (like connections) can be pooled and re-used.
•More flexible, scalable, and performant
•Thin clients can be made available on internet on browsers on any
desktop
•Distributed n-tier computing has many advantages but it also makes
programming to handle multi-user sessions more complex.
•Thin-client multi-tiered applications are hard to write because they involve a
lot of complex code to handle transaction management, multi-threading,
database connection and resource pooling, performance issues…
•Developing distributed applications is difficult and requires highly skilled and
experienced people.

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 Application Servers With Component
Transaction Monitors
Application components
Server

• Application server provides framework

for server side objects :
– Provide Concurrency, transactions, load
balancing.
Simplifies programming.
• But application server specific APIs!
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

More recently, application servers have allowed the aggregation of enterprise services into a
single web-facing display. This had the effect of simplifying the programming process when
dealing with multiple enterprise applications.
Application Servers and Platform Lock
The problem with this model is that there is a minimum of 25 application servers on the
market and each of them (as of late 1997) had a programming model that was product specific.
This has the unfortunate effect of locking the application builder into one specific product or
platform. This is a damper on the pace of innovation of eCommerce. Applications written to
one of these servers will be locked into the sever architecture, and will be unable to take
advantage of feature and performance enhancements found in the rest of the industry by virtue
of this “lock-in.”
The only solution to this problem would be to rewrite the application to a new application
server with the desired new features or performance characteristics. This would be an
expensive proposition, since an entirely new application model would have to be developed.
Application Servers with components and TP:
•With application servers the programmer can focus on business logic by developing
components which are deployed in the application server.
•Application Server provides transaction management, multi-threading, database connection
and resource pooling, performance…
•BUT Problem: until recently there was no standard on how those components had to be
developed, and what the API was between the components and the application server.
•Not Portable: components developed for one application server couldn't be deployed in
another one without a major re-write. Developer was locked to Application Server Vendor.

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 Why EJB™?

• best of distributed components and

application servers:
• Simplifies the complexity of a building n-
tier applications.
• Standardizes an API for components and
application servers.
• Provides a framework for portable
components.

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

EJB™ specifies a standard component model for application servers.

Divide the building of a distributed application into different tasks. EJB™
servers provide services that in the past had to be developed by the application
programmer.
Take the best aspect of distributed components and TP application servers:
Simplifies the complexity of a building n-tier component based TP
applications.
Standardizes an API for components and application servers. (Standard
contract between application server container and EJB™ components).
Provides a framework in which reusable, portable transaction oriented
business logic components can be created without programming the
infrastructure.

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 Why EJB™?

•W r i t e y o u r b u s i n e s s , n o t

–thread/connection pooling

–threading

–life cycle

–m a n a g e m e n t

–load balance / scalability

•E J B ™ provides the framework

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

15
 J2EE™ Solution

Heterogeneous
ERP DB Mail Dir TP Servers

Java 2 Enterprise Edition Distributed

Apps
EJB
Authentication Federating
JSP /
Interfaces Web
https Servlet Frontend
Internet

Uncontrolled
Customer Partner Supplier Clients
XML + Java™
Unified platform with standard Model and
standard APIs © for developing Enterprise Applications
Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

Taken in this context, the solution to the previous problems would be a single,
unified platform that would enable eCommerce in a distributed computing
environment across a wide array of competing products and would have a
single easy-to-use model for building applications. To be more specific, the
solution is the Java 2 platform, Enterprise Edition™.

Java 2 platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE™)

(J2EE ) is a platform that enables
solutions for developing, deploying and managing eCommerce applications.
As a platform, J2EE™ extends Java computing into the enterprise-class arena.
This platform is the natural evolution of the Java 2 platform, Standard Edition.
J2EE extends a company's existing Java investment to address the needs of
server-centric IT development. As an open standard, the J2EE platform
ensures open competition for Java development to avoid proprietary server
platform lock.

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 J2EE™

Unified Platform:
•APIs for naming, security, transactions, messaging
Database, remote communication.
•EJB™ is cornerstone
©
of these APIs
Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

Prior to J2EE™ there were a bunch of enterprise java apis. This platform
weaves them together into a cohesive unifying platform.
Enterprise Java APIs provide programming interfaces for diverse middleware
implementations, such as naming, security, transactions, messaging and
database.
Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB™) are the cornerstone of these APIs.
J2EE™ provides a component-based, server-centric multi-tier application
architecture.
By defining the J2EE™ platform, developers are :
•ensured consistent, integrated runtime environment
•which enables application portability and interoperability.

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 J2EE™ Architecture

Components run within Container.

Container provides J2SE ™ & J2EE ™ APIs &
Runtime environment
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

The J2EE™ runtime environment is made up of components and containers.

Components are pieces of application code that can be assembled into working
applications. They run within an environment called a container.
Containers provide a J2SE ™ runtime environment, and provide the
implementations of J2EE™ APIs for services like transactions and messaging.
Examples of J2EE™ tools:
•create components (IDE, HTML editors, content editors)
•application assembly tool
•deployment tools for deployment
•management tools of J2EE™ applications.
Connectors: standard way to extend J2EE services to other non- J2EE™
application systems, such as mainframe systems and ERP systems. Will be
defined in a future release.
APM: Application Programming Model, models an e-commerce application
architecture using J2EE™ technology.

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 J2EE™ Deliverables

J2EE™ J2EE™
Specification Reference
Implementation

J2EE™

J2EE™
J2EE™
Compatibility
Test Suite BluePrints

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

•J2EE™ Reference Implementation: an SDK operational framework

providing all of the J2EE™ APIs
•helps developers prototype with the J2EE™ technology
•Provides vendors with a standard for comparing their implementations
•J2EE ™ Specification: Defines a standard for implementing the J2EE ™
platform
•J2EE ™ Compatibility Test Suite: Test suite for testing J2EE ™ compliance
of vendor products.
•J2EE ™ APM: describes and implements a sample application showing
“best practices” for developing and deploying a thin client J2EE ™ e-
commerce application.

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 J2EE™ Platform Specification

Applet Web Container EJB™ Container

Container
Applet HTTP/ JSP Servlet RMI EJB
HTTPS

J2SE

RMI/IIOP

RMI/IIOP

JDBC
JDBC
JavaMail JavaMail

JNDI

JMS

JNDI
JTA

JMS

JTA
App Client
Container JAF JAF
App HTTP/
Client HTTPS
J2SE
RMI
RMI/IIOP

JDBC
JNDI
JMS

J2SE J2SE

Database

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

Let’s view in more detailed diagram, the relationship of components and

containers.
Developers are responsible for the implementation of only the components,
shown in green.
The containers provide runtime support for the components. Eg: container
is the car and component is the driver.
The containers are responsible for providing the enterprise APIs , shown in
gold, and the distributed communication protocols, shown in brown.
3 categories of components:
•components that are deployed, managed & executed on a J2EE ™ server: JSP ™, servlets ™ & EJB™
™s
•components that are deployed & managed on a J2EE ™ server but are loaded & executed on a client
machine: applet
•components whose deployment and management are not completely defined in this spec: application client

Platform specifies a container for each component type. Each container type
must support a set of standard services as defined in the spec.

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 Containers and Components

Containers Components
Handle Handle
• Concurrency • Presentation
• Security
• Availability
• JSP ™
, Servlets,
Applets
• Scalability
• Business Logic
• Transactions
• Distribution • EJB ™
• Data Access Logic
(optional)

• EJB ™

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

The container is the car

The component is the driver

The container is the platform

The component is your application

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 EJB™ Provides:

• Easier development
• open industry standard support
• Multi-tiered architecture
• Scalability
• Distributed transaction support
• Portable cross platform component
model, Platform independence

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

EJB™ Provides
-EJB™ Components provide reusable Data and Business Logic
-EJB™ Servers provide transactions and security support
-n-tier Architecture provides scalability and performance
-component container contract provides cross platform portability

22
 n-tier Architecture with EJB™

Application Server

Container Beans
RDBMS
Java RMI / IIOP
clients
Data Base
network
network

C++, VB..
clients HTTP PeopleSoft
SAP R/3

HTML Web Server

Legacy
Browser
clients
Systems
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

Multi-tier Architecture: Client - EJB™ ™ Application Server – Database

Client:
•Can be GUI written in any language, Servlets, JSP. Clients can access EJBs using either RMI,
Corba or DCOM bridge
Bean:
•responsible for the ” business logic”. Enterprise JavaBeans execute within an EJB™
container, which in turn executes within an EJB™server
Containers:
•The container provides a portability layer that lets anyone’s beans operate in anyone else’s
container.
•The container intercepts all calls between the client and the bean. This gives it the
opportunity to implement services for the enterprise bean.
•provides the environment in which the beans run (Actually combination of classes/interfaces).
The EJB™ ™ container provides services such as transaction coordination, resource
management, life cycle maintenance, persistence, and security role verification… to the EJB™
™ components it contains.
Application Server:
•provides EJB™ Infrastructure, provides underlying system services required by EJB™
container and manages resources.
Layers of Services: The Application Server provides services to the container, which in turn
provides services to the bean.

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 EJB™ Component Oriented N-tier
Development
Application Server

Container
Client O
R EJB EJB EJB
B

Naming Transactions Persistence

Environment Services

DB
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

EJB™ Server:
provides EJB™ Infrastructure, provides underlying system services required by Container and EJB.
•Provides a Container Runtime Environment.
Containers:
provides the environment in which the beans run (Actually combination of classes/interfaces).
•transparently provides services by intercepting all method calls to the EJB™ component.
•provides management and control services:
•Naming services: JNDI ™ registration of EJB™ when loaded
•Lifecycle, state mgmt: creates and removes bean instances, Instance pooling, activation and passivation
•security checks - performs authentication & access control. Declarative & programmatic security.
•serializing method calls
•resource pooling
•Transaction coordination: declarative transaction mgmt
•Persistence management: storing of beans
•bean runtime context information (meta data)
The container simplifies nontrivial aspects of a distributed application such as security, transaction
coordination, and data persistence. The container and service providers implement the EJB™ infrastructure. This
infrastructure deals with distribution aspects, transaction management, and security aspects of an application. The
EJB™ specification defines the Java APIs for the infrastructure.
Developers focus on their area of expertise: the business logic and leave the infrastructure to the platform specialists.

24
 Container Responsibility

Application Server

Life Cycle
Persistence State
Management
Container

EJB EJB EJB

Remote
Transaction Security
Interface

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

For each enterprise bean, the container is responsible for:

•registering the object.
•providing a remote interface for the object.
•creating and destroying object instances.
•checking security for the object.
•managing the active state for the object (activation/passivation).
•coordinating distributed transactions.
•Persisting CMP entity beans, and saving stateful session beans attributes when passivated.
When a client calls an EJB ™ 's remote interface, it actually connects to the container. The
container verifies that the call conforms to the semantics specified in the deployment descriptor
before dispatching the call to the EJB™ itself. This mechanism enables the container to control all
aspects of an EJB's execution, including:
•Lifecycle. The ejb-jar file includes the home interface of the EJB. This interface includes one or more create and one
or more destroy methods. The container is responsible for implementing this interface so that a client may create or
destroy instances of an EJB. The reason for having the container as opposed to the EJB™ object implement this
interface is so the container may enforce security, transaction, and persistence requirements when executing them. The
container is also responsible for putting the home interface in the naming or directory service so that it is accessible
from JNDI.
•Security. The deployment descriptor object contains declarations about the access control for an EJB's methods.
When a client attempts to call the method of an EJB, the container is responsible for looking up the user's permission
in an access control list (ACL) to verify he has the right to invoke that method.
•Transactions. The deployment descriptor object contains declarations about the transaction restrictions on an EJB's
methods. When a client attempts to call the method of an EJB, the container is responsible for verifying that the call
obeys the transaction restrictions on that method. These restrictions include: must not execute within a transaction
context, may execute within a transaction context, must execute within a transaction context, and must execute within
a new transaction context. The container is responsible for issuing the appropriate calls to the transaction service so
that, if appropriate, an EJB™ participates in the transaction.
•Persistence. An Entity Bean may choose either bean-managed or container-managed persistence. In the case of bean-
managed persistence, the bean implements its own data access code. In the case of container-managed persistence, the
bean delegates data access to the container. For EJBs under container-managed persistence, the container is obviously
responsible for implementing the appropriate data access functions.

25
 What features must a server
#3

offer?
Transaction Connection Pooling
Management

Security Load
Balancing

Web
Developer

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

EJB™ Servers
Servers are primarily resource managers in the EJB™ architecture. Each server manages the allocation
of resources to the containers it controls. At the coarsest level of granularity, this resource management
includes determining which containers and how many of each may run within the server. At a finer level
of granularity, this resource management occurs at three levels. At the client level, the server manages
incoming client requests. This management includes providing connection for clients, dispatching
client requests to containers, and routing responses back to clients. At the container level, the server
manages the processing resources available to the container. This management includes allocating
available worker processes and threads to running containers. At the service level, the server manages
container access to shared services. Such services may include a centralized security manager, a
transaction service implementation, a pool of JDBC drivers, a global cache manager, and an
asynchronous messaging service.
An EJB™ application may run on more than one server. So in addition to allocating resources to their
managed containers, servers must cooperate as a group to allocate resources efficiently across all the
servers in a cluster. This cooperation involves publishing load information to a load balancing process
that then assigns client requests to the least-loaded server that can provide the requested services. It also
includes system management infrastructure such as demons that automatically start server processes,
alerts to a management console when server load exceeds a certain level, and management interfaces for
controlling the resource allocation policies of the server.

26
 Open Standard Solution:

• Java™ is platform independent

• EJB™ components are portable between
EJB™ application servers (API or
contract between container and
component)
• Communication protocol is RMI or RMI
over IIOP, integrates with CORBA ,
different clients
• Portable across databases (JDBC™)
• Portable across assembly tools (XML)

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

components are portable between application servers.

Communication protocol is RMI or RMI over IIOP, integrates with CORBA ,
different clients

27
 EJB™ Architecture

Remote interface stubs

Server provides resource mgmt

create
lookup home context
remove
create
lookup
client remove S
bean
methods
object
Business
methods Container
Automatically invokes services based on
requirements defined in deployment descriptor

Deployment
Descriptor
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

•The Bean Remote Interface provides the client-side view of the Bean: It specifies all
the methods or public interfaces of the Bean that clients can call
•The Home Interface specifies methods to create an actual instance of a Bean
•EJBHome object plays role of "factory" object design pattern. Provides methods
to Create, remove and find enterprise beans
•EJBObject “proxy” object design pattern: The Client does not have direct access to
the EJB.The container provides an EJBObject as mediator or “proxy” between the
client, the container, and the EJB™ Instance. The EJBObject allows the container to
intercept calls to provide transaction management, security, persistence, or
activation/passivation related tasks. EJBObject is kind of like “Remote Control” for the
bean (like VCR remote control).
•The Bean is the actual code that implements the business logic of the bean.
•EJBContext is implemented by the container and provides the bean with information
about the client, the container, and the bean itself. The bean can use this information
while processing requests.
•The Deployment Descriptor: is a xml file which specifies Bean properties, this
allows the bean provider, application assembler and the deployer to set attributes for
security, transaction, and environment variables.

28
Enterprise Java Beans
Fundamentals

–EJB™’s Three types:

•An object that represents a
stateless service.
•An object that represents a
conversational session with a
particular client. Such session
objects automatically maintain their
conversational state across multiple
client-invoked methods.
•A persistent entity object that is
shared among multiple clients.

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

29
 MVC Thin Client design model

servlet Entity

Session DB

JSP Entity

View Controller Model

Presentation Business Business
Logic Process Data
Business Logic
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

•View - The UI view involves the presentation layout (the actual HTML output), for the results of the
interaction. For HTML clients, this can be done using JSP™.
•Controller- presentation logic (the logical connection between the user and EJB™ services), necessary
to process the HTTP request, control the business logic, and select an appropriate response. This can be
provided by Java Servlets or Java Beans which call EJB’s for the business logic, and then call JSP’s to
display the result.
•Business logic (Model) -the business logic (the core business transactions and processing), necessary to
accomplish the goal of the interaction (calculations, queries, and/or updates to a database, etc). Business
logic should be separated from UI logic. This makes it possible to have different clients (for example
browser and GUI) using the same beans. Separating the 2 also makes the business components easier to
re-use, maintain, and update or change.
•Session Beans represent the business rules or process part of Business Logic. Session Beans
manage information relating to a conversation between the client and the server.
•Entity Beans represent the business data (stored in data base) part of Business Logic. Entity
beans represent and manipulate persistent application domain data.
Separating an application into layers like this allows you to change one layer without changing the other
layers. For example you can change the business rules without changing the business data, or change the
UI without changing the backend.

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 Session Beans
Represents business rules or process.
• Session beans are process, workflow or
control objects
• 2 types of session EJBs:
– stateful - maintains client specific state
(E.G. ShoppingCart).
– Stateless – provides services without
storing client specific information
• Session beans are often a client of multiple
entity beans: control workflow, process,tasks
between entity beans.

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

Session Beans:
Session beans are process or control objects specific to a particular client.
responsible for controlling workflow, managing processes or tasks , manage
activities (make reservation, purchase...) coordinate processes between entity
beans,Control interactions of objects, transient not stored in database. Do not
represent data in database , but they can access it. Life span is less than or
equal to the client.
•Executes on behalf of a single client
•can be transaction aware
•can update shared data in an underlying database but does not represent data
that should be stored in a database
•Is relatively short-lived (life typically is that of its client)
•Is removed when the EJB™ server crashes
Stateless
•execute a request and return a result without saving any state information
Stateful
•extension of client. performs tasks for client and maintain state on behalf of
client.

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 Entity Beans

Represents business model data.

• Represent business domain objects often
expressed as nouns: customer, order,
product..
• maps business data in the database to a
java class.
• Model permanent data: gives in memory
view and manipulation of data.

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

Entity Beans
•persistent object: wraps "object data" stored in a database and provides
operations to manipulate this data.
•shared among multiple clients.
•Model permanent business “entities” or concepts that can be expressed as
nouns (i.e. customer inventory item)
•usually persistent records in database
•If the App Server crashes entity beans can be re-instantiated from the
database entity data.

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Session vs. Entity Bean

Session Bean Entity Bean

Represents Process. Performs Represents Data:

Purpose a task, or process for a client. respresents a
business entity
object that exists in
persistent storage.

Shared One instance per client Shared instance for

Access multiple clients

Persistence Not persistent. When the Persistent. Even

client terminates its session when the EJB™
bean is no longer available. container
terminates, the
entity state remains
in a database.
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

33
 Session & Entity Beans

Session
Entity Row

Session Row
1
Entity
1 1
1 n
Session 1

Presentation Business Business

Rules, Data
Process
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

If an entity bean represents a row in a database then the relationship between

entity bean instance and row is 1-to-1. Since multiple clients may access this
row, entity beans are shared among multiple clients.
Stateful Session beans can maintain per-client state information because the
relationship between the client and the session instance is always 1-to-1. This
is why Session Beans can manage information relating to a conversation
between the client and the server.

34
Example Scenario: Use Case

Transfer
Money
Customer

Use Case: ATM customer transfers money from checking

to savings account

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

35
Example scenario: Classes

ATM Account
0…* 0…*
withdraw()
transfer()
accesses deposit()

Checking Savings
Account Account

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

36
Example Scenario: Sequence
Diagram

ATM saving checking

: Customer account account

1: transfer()
2: debit()

3: credit())

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

37
Example scenario: EJB™

debit Account
Entity Bean
ATM
Client account1
Session bean

Transfer account2
credit Account
Entity Bean

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

38
 EJB™ Packaging

EJBHome
Interface
Bean

EJBObject
Interface

Deployment
descriptor

EJB™ Jar

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

EJBs are packaged in a Jar file along with the EJBHome (“factory”)
interface, the EJBOjbect (“proxy”) interface and the XML deployment
descriptor.

39
 EJB™ Roles: Bean Provider

EJB EJB Deployment

home object
ejb descriptor

Deployment tools

EJB
home
ejb
EJB
object

Deployment
descriptor
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

Enterprise Bean Provider

The EJB™ provider is typically a domain expert who develops enterprise beans.
The Bean Provider is the producer of enterprise beans. His or her output is an ejb-jar file that contains one or more
enterprise bean(s).
The Bean Provider is responsible for:
•the Java classes that implement the enterprise bean’s business methods;
•the definition of the bean’s remote and home interfaces;
•and the bean’s deployment descriptor. The deployment descriptor includes the structural information (e.g. the name of
the enterprise bean class) of the enterprise bean and declares all the enterprise bean’s external dependencies (e.g. the
names and types of resources that the enterprise bean uses).
The Bean Provider develops reusable enterprise beans which implement business tasks or business entities. The
Bean Provider is not required to be an expert at system-level programming. Therefore, the Bean Provider usually does
not program transactions, concurrency, security, distribution, or other services into the enterprise Beans. The
Bean Provider relies on the EJB™ Container for these services.
component creation:
•create components (EJBs) and EJBHome and EJBObject interfaces using tools like IDEs
•create an XML component deployment descriptor
•package components into EJB™ jar

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 EJB™ Roles: Application Assembler

ejb-jar (.jar) Web jars (.war):

servlets, JSP…
Deployment
descriptor

Deployment tools

Application Jar (.ear):

EJBHome EJBObject interfaces,
Entity Beans
JSP beans, servlets, DD

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

Application Assembler
The application assembler is a domain expert who composes applications by combining existing beans.
The Application Assembler combines enterprise beans into larger deployable application units.
The input to the Application Assembler:
•one or more ejb-jar files produced by the Bean Provider(s). The Application Assembler works with the enterprise
Bean’s deployment descriptor and the enterprise Bean’s client-view contract. Although the Assembler must be
familiar with the functionality provided by the enterprise Beans’ remote and home interfaces, he or she does not need
to have any knowledge of the enterprise Beans’ implementation.
The Application Assembler outputs:
•one or more application ejb-jar files that contain the enterprise beans along with their application assembly
instructions. The Application Assembler has inserted the application assembly instruction into the deployment
descriptors.
•The Application Assembler can also combine enterprise beans with web components (e.g. Java ServerPages™ or
Servlets) when composing an application.
Assembling an application:
•take a set of components & assemble them into complete application.
•Reconcile deployment parameters:
•link internal dependencies of all components, such as EJB™ names
•synchronize security role-names across components in the application
•create an XML application deployment descriptor
•must be named application.xml
•package the application as an Enterprise Archive format (.ear)
•This step will typically be done via wizards and tools, and developers will usually not be editing the XML
deployment descriptors by hand

41
 EJB™ Roles: Deployer

Application Jar
Deployment
descriptor

Deployment tools
EJBHome EJBObject
Implementations,
Container
Enterprise Beans
Client stubs
context
meta attributes
client
Database

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

Deployer
•The deployer is an expert at a specific operational environment and is responsible for deployment of a EJB™
application in its container.
•The Deployer takes one or more ejb-jar files produced by a Bean Provider or Application Assembler and deploys the
enterprise beans contained in the ejb-jar files in a specific operational environment. The operational environment
includes a specific EJB™ Server and Container.
•The Deployer must resolve all the external environment dependencies declared by the Bean Provider, and must
follow the application assembly instructions defined by the Application Assembler.
•The Deployer uses tools supplied by the EJB™ Container Provider to perform the deployment tasks.
•The Deployer’s output is enterprise beans (or an assembled application that includes enterprise beans) that have
been customized for the target operational environment, and that are deployed in a specific EJB™ Container.
Deployment:
•installation: copy all material to server
•configuration: resolve all external dependencies:
•execution: start up new application
Configure environment:
•resolve external references
•to EJBs
•to resource factories, like databases
•to URLs
•set application config parameters
assign security:
•map security roles to user groups and accounts that exist in the enterprise
•set up authorization
•choose authentication mechanisms
•provide authentication data for resource access

42
 EJB™ Roles: Server/Container Provider

Container EJBHome EJBObject

Implementations Deployment tools

Application Server

Container
O
R
B

Naming Transactions Persistence

Environment Services
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

EJB™ Server Provider

The EJB™ Server Provider is a specialist in the area of distributed
transaction management, distributed
objects, and other lower-level system-level services. A typical EJB™ Server
Provider is an OS vendor, middleware vendor, or database vendor. The current
EJB™ architecture assumes that the EJB™ Server Provider and the EJB™
Container Provider roles are the same vendor. Therefore, it does not define any
interface requirements for the EJB™ Server Provider.
EJB™ Container Provider
The EJB™ Container Provider (Container Provider for short) provides
• The deployment tools necessary for the deployment of enterprise beans.
• The runtime support for the deployed enterprise beans’ instances.
The focus of a Container Provider is on the development of a scalable, secure,
transaction-enabled container that is integrated with an EJB™ Server. The
Container Provider insulates the enterprise Bean from the specifics of an
underlying EJB™ Server by providing a simple, standard API between the
enterprise Bean and the container. This API is the Enterprise JavaBeans
component contract.

43
Lifecycle Illustration

Creation Assembly Deployment

Assembled
Created by J2EE Modules and Augmented J2EE APP Processed
Component by Application by Deployer
Developer Assembler

Deploy

J2EE Container

Enterprise
Components

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

44
 Declarative Programming

§Instead of programming functionality in the

Bean:
§The bean provider/assembler/deployer specifies bean
properties for transaction, security, persistence… in the
deployment descriptor.
§The container’s deployment tools generate EJBHome
EJBObject classes and code to provide the specified
functionality.
§Container/EJBObject intercepts all calls to the bean at
runtime
§Provides transactional,security, persistence behavior
§Then delegates the method to the object
Declarative Programming simplifies the development process,
and makes the components Portable, Scalable, Customizable.
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

The deployment descriptor allows the bean provider to specify bean

properties which can be set and modified using deployment tools without
changing code, recompiling… These settings guide the EJB™ container for
managing and controlling the enterprise bean. This allows “declarative
programming”, meaning modifications can be made without programming.
Allowing the user to specify the Bean’s transactional and security attributes
declaratively simplifies the process of building transactional applications
and permits better portability.
The deployment descriptor contains the following information:
•Environment properties
•Transaction attributes
•Security attributes: access control and identification
•EJB™ class names
•Ejbhome, ejbobject interface names
•Type of enterprise bean, session or entity

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Bean Provider Example

Hertz Bean Provider

Creates Car Reservation EJB(s)

Car
Reservation
EJB

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

46
Bean Provider Example

Delta Bean Provider

Creates flight Reservation EJB(s)

Flight
Reservation
EJB

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

47
Application Assembler

AAA
Application Assembler
Creates Travel agency
Application

Travel Agency
Session, JSPs

Car Flight
Reservation Reservation
EJB EJB

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

48
Deployment in a Target Container

Car
Database
EJB™ Container
Car
Reservation

Client Travel
Agency Flight
Database
Flight
Reservation

Deployment
Descriptor

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

49
 Broad Industry Adoption

• BEA/Weblogic • Iona • SCT

• Bluestone • Luna • Secant
• Bull • NetBeans • Siemens
• Forte • NetDynamics • SilverStream
• Fujitsu • Netscape • Sun
• Gemstone • Novasoft Microsystems
• Haht Software • Novell • Sybase
• IBM • Novera • Symantec
• Information • ObjectShare • Tendril
Builders • Oracle • TradeeX
• Informix • Persistence • Valto
• Inline • Progress • Versant
• Inprise • Vision

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

50
Enterprise Deployment

• Air Canada • NationsBank

• Celera Genomics • Qwest
• Countrywide Telecommunications
• Covad Communications • Raytheon
• Electric Boat • Rorke Data
• FAA • Scottish Equitable
• FedEx • Sparks.com
• GE Aircraft Engines • Trip.com
• GTE • University of Ottawa
Heart Institute
• Impresse Corporation
• Visa International
• Instinet (Reuters)

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

51
EJB™ Links & References:
O'REILLY: Enterprise JavaBeans By Richard Monson-Haefel
http://www.oreilly.com/
Wiley: Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans By Ed Roman
Prentice Hall: Enterprise JavaBeans by Example
http://www.prentice-hall.com/ptrbooks/ptr_0130224758.html
Programming with Enterprise JavaBeans, JTS, and OTS
by Andreas Vogel, Madhavan Rangarao
Enterprise Javabeans : Developing Component-Based Distributed Applications by Thomas
C. Valesky http://adams.patriot.net/~tvalesky/ejb.html
Java EJB™ site:
http://java.sun.com/ejb
DEV-x javabeans:
http://www.javabeans-zone.com/
Special Interest Group - Enterprise JavaBeans
http://www.mgm-edv.de/ejbsig/ejbsig.html
Links to EJB™ articles
http://www.ejbnow.com
Cetus Distributed Objects & Components: Enterprise JavaBeans
http://www.rheinneckar.de/~cetus/oo_javabeans.html
http://www.ejbportal.com/
Javaworld
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/topicalindex/jw-ti-ejb.html
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

52
 EJB™ Characteristics Summary

• Contained & managed at runtime by an

EJB™ container within an EJB™ server
• Customized at deployment time using
deployment descriptor
• Declarative properties (deployment
descriptors) separated from compiled
code
• Client only accesses EJB™ via
container/server
• Portable across EJB™ servers, client
view (interface) is unaffected
• Can be assembled without source code
© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

Portable across EJB™ Application servers

Contained & managed at runtime by an EJB™ container within an EJB™
server
Bean provides the business logic
Simplifies the complexity of a building n-tier applications.
Scalable, distributable, performant, easier to update and maintain

53
First Exercise

• Think about how an online store could

be designed using session and entity
EJBs.

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

54
Example Solution: Online Shopping

customer Register or Login to online Customer account

Browse Catalog
customer

Add item to Shopping cart

customer

customer Purchase/Order items in Shopping cart

© Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc., All rights reserved.

55