Enterprise JavaBeans, Second Edition

Chapter 3. Resource Management and the Primary Services

Chapter 2 discussed the basic architecture of Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), including the relationship between the bean class, remote interfaces, the EJB object and EJB home, and the EJB server. These architectural components define a common model for distributed server-side components in component transaction monitors (CTMs).

One of the reasons CTMs are such great distributed object platforms is that they do more than just distribute objects: they manage the resources used by distributed objects. CTMs are designed to manage thousands, even millions, of distributed objects simultaneously. To be this robust, CTMs must be very smart resource managers, managing how distributed objects use memory and processing power. EJB recognizes that some of the resource management techniques employed by CTMs are very common, and it defines interfaces that help developers create beans that can take advantage of these common practices.

EJB CTMs are also great distributed object brokers. Not only do they help clients locate the distributed objects they need, they also provide many services that make it much easier for a client to use the objects correctly. CTMs commonly support six primary services: concurrency, transaction management, persistence, object distribution, naming, and security. These services provide the kind of infrastructure that is necessary for a successful three-tier system.

This chapter discusses both the resource management facilities ...