Enterprise JavaBeans, Second Edition

Appendix D. New Features in EJB 1.1

In December 1999, Sun Microsystems released the final specification of Enterprise JavaBeans 1.1. Enterprise JavaBeans 1.1 is, in many ways, a point release with corrections and clarifications over EJB 1.0 that allows vendors and bean developers to create more portable beans. This appendix summarizes the most important and visible modifications to the specification made in EJB 1.1.

The biggest changes between EJB 1.0 and EJB 1.1 include mandating entity bean support, the adoption of XML deployment descriptors, the creation of a default JNDI context, and changes to security.

Entity Beans

EJB 1.1 mandates support for the [a-z]ntity bean type. In EJB 1.0, entity bean support is optional, which means vendors can support them in whole, in part, or not at all. Most EJB server vendors chose to support entity beans in some way; for these vendors, the transition to full support shouldn’t be difficult. For most EJB developers, the required support for entity beans is welcomed because it provides a more stable platform for portable beans.

The entity bean type itself has undergone some changes. The bean-managed transaction option has been removed from entity beans. This option is difficult to use because it requires explicit transactional control by the developer. Removing it from entity beans simplifies the EJB architecture. Stateful session beans, however, still retain the option of managing their own transactions.

Another welcome change is the expansion of ...