Developing EJBs

Developing EJBs

An introduction to the development cycle of Enterprise Java Beans

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Abstract

As with every software development process, one has to consider many aspects of the development cycle before starting. The following text is intended to give an overview of the aspects to consider especially when developing Enterprise Java Beans.

For setting up the software development environment, firstly a J2EE-Server has to be choosen. The second thing to find is an appropriate IDE which simplifies the development process as much as possible and allows the programmer to focus on implementing business logic instead of writing and modifying interfaces and deployment descriptors over and over. In the best case this IDE also integrates the packaging process. To further simplify the development other tools should be evaluated. This text aims to present an overview of available tools regarding each of these points. Finally, a sample application is developed to demonstrate how much work an IDE can do for the programmer.

Choosing a J2EE-Server

Today there are many J2EE-Servers available, both commercial and free products. A collection of the most common can be found below:

Commercial Products

• BEA Weblogic (http://www.bea.com/products/weblogic/server/index.shtml)
• IBM Websphere (http://www-306.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/was/)
• Oracle Application Server (http://www.oracle.com/appserver/index.html)
• Borland Enterprise Server (http://www.borland.com/bes/appserver/)
• SAP Web Application Server (http://www11.sap.com/germany/solutions/netweaver/webappserver/index.aspx)

Free / Open Source Products

• JBoss (http://www.jboss.org/products/jbossas)
• JOnAS (http://jonas.objectweb.org/)
• Sun Java System Application Server (http://java.sun.com/j2ee/)

The Sun Java System Application Server is important, because since it comes from Sun, it is the reference implementation of J2EE. Furthermore, at present it is the only available server supporting JSF.

Sample application

Jan Hegewald