Enterprise JavaBeans, Third Edition

EJB 2.0: The Local Client API

EJB 2.0 introduces the concept of local component interfaces, which are intended to provide different semantics and a different execution context for enterprise beans that work together within the same EJB container system.

When two or more enterprise beans interact, they are usually co-located; that is, they are deployed in the same EJB container system and execute within the same Java Virtual Machine. Co-located beans do not need to use the network to communicate. Since they are in the same JVM, they can communicate more directly by avoiding the overhead of Java RMI-IIOP. However, the EJB 1.1 specification required that even co-located beans utilize Java RMI-IIOP semantics for communication. This specification did not require that a network protocol be used, but it did require that Java RMI-IIOP types be used and that all objects be copied, rather then referenced, when passed as arguments to methods.

EJB 1.1 vendors, determined to squeeze every ounce of performance out of their servers, optimized co-located beans. The optimizations required that the EJB container interpose on invocations from one EJB to another but allowed vendors to avoid the overhead of the network; arguments and returned values were processed within the JVM by the container and not serialized over the network. However, arguments still had to be copied, rather then passed by reference, which slowed invocations down slightly. Many, if not most, vendors offered a proprietary switch ...