Product Description

If you're up on the latest Java technologies, then you know that Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 3.0 is the hottest news in Java this year. In fact, EJB 3.0 is being hailed as the new standard of server-side business logic programming. And O'Reilly's award-winning book on EJB has been refreshed just in time to capitalize on the technology's latest rise in popularity.

This fifth edition, written by Bill Burke and Richard Monson-Haefel, has been updated to capture the very latest need-to-know Java technologies in the same award-winning fashion that drove the success of the previous four strong-selling editions. Bill Burke, Chief Architect at JBoss, Inc., represents the company on the EJB 3.0 and Java EE 5 specification committees. Richard Monson-Haefel is one of the world's leading experts on Enterprise Java.

"Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0," 5th Edition is organized into two parts: the technical manuscript followed by the JBoss workbook. The technical manuscript explains what EJB is, how it works, and when to use it. The JBoss workbook provides step-by-step instructions for installing, configuring, and running the examples from the manuscript on the JBoss 4.0 Application Server.

Although EJB makes application development much simpler, it's still a complex and ambitious technology that requires a great deal of time to study and master. But now, thanks to "Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0," 5th Edition, you can overcome the complexities of EJBs and learn from hundreds of practical examples that are large enough to test key concepts but small enough to be taken apart and explained in the detail that you need. Now you can harness the complexity of EJB with just a single resource by your side.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14840 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 760 pages

Amazon.com Review
Thoroughly enhanced for the EJB 1.1 specification, Enterprise JavaBeans, 2nd Edition provides a great introduction to the world of server-side Java components. With plenty of material on EJB architecture and design, this new edition can serve as an authoritative resource for mastering today's bean standards.

Besides a general introduction to EJBs, the new edition of this book excels at highlighting the differences between the EJB 1.0 and 1.1 standards. Sample code is provided for both versions. For deployment, EJB 1.1 now relies on XML to define all bean resources and dependencies. For every sample bean, the author provides the XML, as well as the old-style Java code for EJB 1.0. There's also plenty of coverage of the new reliance on JNDI (the Java directory service) in EJB 1.1 and other late-breaking Sun standards, such as combining EJBs with servlets and JSPs for delivering dynamic Web content.

This text is organized as a tutorial to the major types of EJBs with full coverage of entity beans (for accessing databases) and session beans (for managing "conversations" with particular clients). The author covers all the bases here with numerous diagrams describing the life cycle of beans and how they cooperate with today's application servers. As in the first edition, sample beans for a cruise ship booking application let you see actual EJB code in action. Helpful appendices list all EJB APIs and other useful information (such as a list of current EJB vendors).

In all, the revised edition of Enterprise JavaBeans shows off the considerable strengths of the new EJB 1.1 standard. Suitable for any working Java programmer or IT manager, the clear presentation of the strategies and techniques for successful component design help make this book a smart choice for successful development with EJBs. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Overview of Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) v. 1.1 and 1.0, distributed objects, Component Transaction Monitors (CTMs), application servers and EJBs, resource management, EJB server setup, entity beans, session beans and workflow, the JNDI naming service, the life cycle of beans, container-managed and bean-managed persistence for entity beans, stateful and stateless session beans, deploying beans in JAR files (EJB 1.1 and 1.0 conventions), XML deployment descriptors, transaction basics (ACID properties and JTS), EJB security, design strategies and performance tips for EJBs, Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and EJBs, servlets and JSPs used with EJBs, sample beans, state and sequence diagrams for EJBs, and EJB API reference.

From the Author
Dear Reader,

This book is has complete coverage of EJB 2.0. The book also covers EJB 1.1, for readers still using legacy servers.

Over three years have gone into refining the content this book to ensure that it was technically accurate and a pleasure to read. Delivering content that meets these standards isn't easy, and while my name is on the cover, credit is shared with many people.

In addition to this book, we are making companion workbooks available that show how to download, install, and configure different servers so that you can run the books examples on different EJB products. Workbooks and example code are available for free download from OReilly.com for WebLogic 6.1, WebSphere 4.0 and other products.

Thank you for considering my book, Enterprise JavaBeans, 3rd Edition, and good luck in your career as a distributed object professional. It's an exciting field with unlimited challenges and rewards.

Yours truly,

Richard Monson-Haefel Author of Enterprise JavaBeans, 3rd Edition (O'Reilly 2001) Co-Author of Java Message Service (O'Reilly 2000)

About the Author
Bill Burke is Chief Architect at JBoss Inc. Besides co-leading the EJB 3.0 and AOP projects at JBoss, he represents JBoss as an expert on the EJB 3.0 and Java EE 5 specification committees. Bill was co-author of the JBoss workbook included with EJB 4th edition and has published numerous articles in various print and online magazines.

Richard Monson-Haefel is the author of "Enterprise JavaBeans" and "Java Message Service" and is one of the world's leading experts and book authors on Enterprise Java. He is the lead architect of OpenEJB, an open source EJB container used in Apple Computer's WebObjects platform, and has consulted as an architect on J2EE, CORBA, Java RMI and other distributed computing projects over the past several years.

Customer Reviews

Good to the last drop!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Every chapter was excellent.

The book starts with a chapter that explains distributed objects, components, server-side components, and transaction monitors in a way that makes total sense and is fun to read.

The next couple of chapters give you an in-depth look at the EJB architecture removing all the mystery from the technology -- these chapters are pure gold.

Chapters 3 through 7 show how to develop stateless, stateful, CMP and BMP entity beans. These chapters explain how to write beans and how to use them. The examples are very excellent.

Chapter 8 is a very long but necessary chapter on transactions and how they work in EJB. I'm glad they saved this for after Chapters 3 -7 because it's complicated.

Chapter 9 is a priceless Design Strategies chapter that gives you more punch in the first 10 pages then most books give in 100. Even experienced EJB developers will learn new tricks from this chapter.

Chapter 10 is on XML deployment descriptors. This is an excellent reference and the way its organized makes it much simpler to understand.

Chapter 11 covers J2EE. It's short but excellent. The author tells you exactly how EJB fits into J2EE, which is all I wanted to know.

Appendix A - D are an invaluable reference for developers. They include a complete class reference, UML state diagrams and charts, vendor listing and finally a summary of the changes from EJB 1.0 to EJB 1.1.

This is the best EJB book available and will continue to be the best for a long time. Its too solid and too well organized not to be.

The best EJB book
I've read two EJB books and this is, by far, the best one. I started with Ed Romans book, which I never finished because I quickly realized the author knows very little about distributed computing. I found refuge in the Monson-Haefel book, which I found to be concise, detailed, and extremely well written. Richard Monson-Haefel is man who obviously knows his business. The book starts out with a basic chapter on distributed computing. I didn't need it, but it was probably the best introduction to the subject I've ever read. Novices will love it. The rest of the book gives you a unique insight to the inner workings of EJB servers while keeping the language straightforward so that everyone can understand it. Everything is covered including entity, session, transactions, and J2EE. I give this book my highest recommendation.

Required reading
We have been using this book on a large EJB project and have been very happy with it. Monson-Haefel addresses the most complex parts of the EJB platform with a style that makes the book enjoyable to read and EJB fairly easy to learn.

The first three chapters of the book explain the purpose, architecture, and implementation of EJB servers. This really helps our people to understand what was going on under the hood and why beans behave the way they do. Without this material, EJB would be a mysterious black box. We now understand EJB at it lowest levels, which makes our people more productive.

The rest of the book provides a detailed explanation of how to develop each kind of bean (stateless, stateful, and entity beans) using an example application. As the book proceeds it builds on the example increasing the complexity incrementally. What's especially appealing is that example is not so large that it's distracting. The book is very focused and the examples add rather then detract from the book.

One of the books greatest strengths is the way it covers Enterprise JavaBeans in detail. Chapter 8, for example, goes into detail about transactions, database locking, isolation levels, and how transactions are propagated. In addition, the same chapter explains how exceptions impact transactions -- a very real issue when developing large-scale projects.

There is also a great chapter on "design strategies" which introduces ideas like the business interface and bulk accessors. While these designs strategies are invaluable to our project, we would like to see a lot more of them. In particular a section on design patterns in EJB would be very helpful. Hopefully this kind of material will be added in a future edition.

EJB is fairly complex, so a good book like this one is a gold mine. We now have about 20 developers working on our EJB project. Every time we add a developer to our project, they are handed a new copy of this book and told to read it. Without out this book most of our new developers would be hopelessly lost. If you are going to use EJB in your project, then you absolutely must have this book -- its essential.