Enterprise Java Beans (EJB)

By

Janaranjani K
 Outline
 Introduction of EJBs.
 EJB as a Business Tier Component.
 EJB fundamentals.
 Enterprise Beans.

 Foundation of EJB.

 What constitutes Enterprise Bean?

 Session beans.
 Components of a Session beans.

 The Session EJB Lifecycle (includes stateful and stateless).

 An example of stateless session bean (which includes both

remote and local interface).
Introduction to EJBs
Introduction to EJBs
 EJB is a standard for building server side component in java. It
defines a contract between the component and application server
that enables the component to run in any application server.

 EJB components (called as enterprise beans) are

 deployable
 imported

 loaded

into an application server, which host all these components.

Continued…

 Common Service includes:

 Transaction Management
 Resource Management
 Connection pooling

 Security
 Networking
 Persistant Management
 Concurrency
 Location transparency
 Load Balancing etc.
EJB as a Business Tier
Component
 Enterprise beans are intended for server side component
development not for client side (which lies in presentation tier
and components like thick clients, web service clients etc are
used for its development). So it lies in Business Tier.

 EJB component can perform the following tasks:

 Perform business logic.

 Access to the database.

 E.g., Submitting an order for books.
 Enterprise bean can achieve database access using JDBC.
 Access another system.
 E.g., Calling some legacy system written in COBOL.
EJB Fundamentals
Enterprise Beans
 An enterprise bean is a server side software component that
can be deployed in a distributed environment.

 It compose of one or more java objects.

 The client to an enterprise bean can be one of the following:

 A servlet
 An applet
 An enterprise bean (this results in chain of beans).
Continued…

 Types of Beans:
 Session beans.
 Stateful session beans.

 Stateless session beans.

 Entity beans.

 Message Driven beans.

Diagrammatic
Representation
Enterprise java
beans

Session Beans MDBs Entity beans

Stateful Stateless CMP BMP

Session Beans
 Session beans model business process.
 They are perform actions. Like,
 Adding numbers

 Accessing database

 Unlike entity beans, they are non-persistant.

 Types:
 Stateful session beans.
 Stateless session beans.
Stateful Session Beans
 A stateful session bean maintains a conversational state
 The state is relevant only for a single client
 Cannot be seen by other clients

 The state is not persistent

 Expires after a certain timeout

 It has performance hit due to resource pooling.

 Canonical example: Shopping cart

Stateless Session Beans
 Conceptually, the same as stateful session beans.
 No need to save the conversational state, so called Stateless.
 Can have fields, but they are not unique to any client

 Since the container knows the bean has no state, it can:

 Use a single bean instance (While each client thinks it has its

own copy)
 Destroy/re-instantiate on the fly

 Redirect requests to different instances (load balancing)

 Client does not care on which server the bean is stored

 Example: Currency conversion bean

Entity Beans
 Entity beans model Business Data.
 Object-oriented view of entities stored in persistent storage
 Normally, each instance represents a row in a relational DB

table
 Persistence code can be written manually (bean-managed
persistence, BMP) or automatically (container-managed
persistence, CMP)
 A single bean instance (on the server) can be accessed by
multiple clients
 Unlike stateful session beans.
Message Driven Beans
 New in EJB 2.0 standard
 Built on top of JMS to send messages to clients, which in
turn would be received by MDB.
 It is invoked by the container upon arrival of message at
the destination that is serviced by the message-driven
bean.
 Have no client visibility,
Foundation of EJB
Distributed Architecture
 EJB components are based on Distributed Objects
 A distributed object is an object that is callable from a remote
system.
 The client can be in-process, out-of-process or a client located
elsewhere on the network.
 It does the invocation with the help of the followings:
 Stubs (client side proxy object):

 It masks the network communication from the client.

 It knows how to call over the network using the sockets, massaging
parameters as necessary into their network representation.
 Skeleton (server side proxy object):
 It masks the network communication from the distributed object.
 It understands how to receive calls on a network.
 Also knows how to massage parameters from the network
representation to their java representations.
 It then delegates the call to the appropriate implementation object.
What constitutes Enterprise
Bean?
Continued…
 Enterprise Bean class:
 It contains the implementation of your business logic.

 It can be session or entity or MDB.

 Component Interface:
 Remote Interface:

 It is the java interface that enumerates the business

methods of your bean class.
 Client code always go through the remote or local interface
and never interacts with the bean directly.
 It obeys the rules for java RMI-IIOP.
Continued…
 Local Interface:
 It’s a high performing version of remote version.

 Used when you are calling the bean that presents in the

same process.
 Unlike remote interface, it will not undergo stubs, skeleton,

marshaling/demarshaling of parameters.
 EJB object:
 It is container generated implementations of the remote

interface.
 All client invoications go through this.It delegates the call to

bean and implements the remote interface

 Local home object:
 High performing version of home object.

 Implements the local home interface.

Continued…
 Home interface:
 Java interface, acts as a EJB factory.

 Provides a handle of bean class to client

 Local Home interface:

 High version of Home interface.

 Home object:
 Container generated implementation of home interface.

 Obeys RMI-IIOP rules.

 Local home object:

 High performing version of home object.

 Implements the local home interface.

Continued…
 Deployment Descriptor:
 An XML file, specifies the middleware requirements of your

bean to the container.

 Vendor specific files:

 Enables you to take the advantage of vendor specific features

 EJB-jar file:
 A complete zip of the above said files.

 Given to the application server.

 Application server unpacks the jar file and loads the bean into the

container.
Session Beans
Components of a Session
Beans
 To define session bean X, you must create three classes:
 The remote (local) component interface, called X (or XLocal)

 Extends EJBObject (or EJBLocalObject)

 (All extended types are from javax.ejb)
 The home interface, called XHome (or XLocalHome)
 Extends EJBHome (or EJBLocalHome)
 The bean class itself, called XBean
 Extends SessionBean
 Should implement java.io.Serializable (for stateful beans)
 Implements business methods from the component interface
 Implements lifecycle methods (ejbXXX)
 The class names are (strong) conventions
Stateful Session Bean’s
Lifecycle
Lifecycle Methods
 Lifecycle methods are defined in the XBean class
 They are named ejbXXX
 ejbCreate, ejbActivate, etc. plus setSessionContext

 No other method name should begin with ‘ejb’

 Some lifecycle methods also appear in the XHome interface

 For session beans, only the create methods appear in the

home interface
 In the home interface, the ‘ejb’ prefix is not used

 i.e., method should be named ‘create’

 Lifecycle methods are invoked by the container when changing

state during the bean’s life
ejbCreate Methods in
Stateful Session Beans
 A stateful session bean can contain several ejbCreate
methods
 The methods can have zero or more parameters
 They can be called as ejbCreate(...) or ejbCreateXXX(...),
for more descriptive names
 e.g., ejbCreateByName(String name)

 Must be public void

 Should throw javax.ejb.CreateException if creation fails
for whatever reason (invalid arguments, etc.)
Continued…
 Must be reflected in the XHome interface (local or remote) by a
method with identical parameters, that is called ‘create’ or
‘createXXX’
 Returns the bean component interface type (X)

 For remote homes, throws java.rmi.RemoteException

 e.g., public X createByName(String name) throws

...
Activation and Passivation
 During the bean’s lifecycle, the container may decide to
passivate it
 Normally done to free up memory and other resources
 Bean is notified immediately before passivation by lifecycle
method ejbPassivate()
 In this method, the bean should:
 Release any resources it might be holding
 Sockets, Open files, database connections, etc.
 Nullify fields that should not be serialized (cache, etc.)
 If the bean is referenced by client while passivated, the container
activates it.
 Bean is notified by ejbActivate() immediately after de-
serialization
 Its chance to restore all field values, resources, etc.
The Lifecycle of Stateless
Session
 EJBs
Session EJBs have no state, so activation and passivation are
meaningless
 The container simply destroys instances when low on memory,

and creates new ones as needed

 Still, ejbActivate and ejbPassivate must be implemented

in XBean (as empty methods)

 The resulting lifecycle diagram is somewhat simplified:
ejbCreate Methods in
Stateless Session Beans
 For stateless session beans, there can be only one ejbCreate
method, accepts zero parameters
 Reflected normally in the home interface as create.
 Must be public void
 Should throw javax.ejb.CreateException if creation fails for
whatever reason (invalid arguments, etc).
 Must be reflected in the XHome interface (local or remote) by a
method with identical parameters, that is called ‘create’.
 Returns the bean component interface type (X)

 For remote homes, throws java.rmi.RemoteException

Sample Session Bean
Deployment Descriptors
 …. <enterprise-beans>
 <session>
 <ejb-name>HelloWorldLocalBean</ejb-name>
 <home>examples.webservices.basic.localHome_Object.HelloWo
rldHome</home>
 <remote>examples.webservices.basic.localHome_Object.HelloW
orldRemote</remote>
 <ejb-
class>examples.webservices.basic.localHome_Object.HelloWorl
dLocalBean</ejb-class>
 <session-type>Stateless(stateful)</session-type>
 <transaction-type>Container</transaction-type>
 </session>
 </enterprise-beans> ….
An example of stateless
session bean.
Session Bean Class
 package examples.webservices.basic.localHome_Object;

 import javax.ejb.SessionBean;
 import javax.ejb.CreateException;
 import javax.ejb.SessionContext;

 public class HelloWorldLocalBean implements SessionBean{

 private SessionContext ctx;


 public void ejbCreate() {}

 public void ejbActivate() {}
 public void ejbPassivate() {}
 public void ejbRemove() {}
 public void setSessionContext(SessionContext ctx) {
 this.ctx = ctx;
 }
 public String sayHelloMethod(int num, String s) {

 System.out.println("sayHello in webservices.basic.javaclass
webservice has "+
 "been invoked with arguments " + s + " and " + num+" the
context is : "+ctx);

 String returnValue = "HelloWorldLocalBean....:This message

brought to you by the "+
 "letter "+s+" and the number "+num+" the context is : "+ctx;

 return returnValue;
 }
 }
Home Interface
 package examples.webservices.basic.localHome_Object;

 import javax.ejb.EJBHome;
 import javax.ejb.CreateException;
 import java.rmi.RemoteException;

 public interface HelloWorldHome extends EJBHome{

 HelloWorldRemote create() throws CreateException,
RemoteException ;
 }
Remote Interface
 package examples.webservices.basic.localHome_Object;

 import java.rmi.RemoteException;
 import javax.ejb.EJBObject;

 public interface HelloWorldRemote extends EJBObject {

 public String sayHelloMethod(int num, String s) throws

RemoteException;


 }
Local Home Interface
 package examples.webservices.basic.localHome_Object;

 import javax.ejb.EJBLocalHome;
 import javax.ejb.CreateException;

 public interface HelloWorldLocalHome extends EJBLocalHome{

 HelloWorldLocal create() throws CreateException;
 }
Local Interface
 package examples.webservices.basic.localHome_Object;

 import javax.ejb.EJBLocalObject;

 public interface HelloWorldLocal extends EJBLocalObject {

 public String sayHelloMethod(int num, String s);


 }
Deployment Descriptor
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <!DOCTYPE ejb-jar PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD
Enterprise JavaBeans 2.0//EN" "http://java.sun.com/dtd/ejb-
jar_2_0.dtd">
 <ejb-jar>
 <enterprise-beans>
 <session>
 <ejb-name>HelloWorldLocalBean</ejb-name>
 <home>examples.webservices.basic.localHome_Object.HelloWo
rldHome</home>
 <remote>examples.webservices.basic.localHome_Object.HelloW
orldRemote</remote>
Continued…
 <local-
home>examples.webservices.basic.localHome_Object.HelloWorl
dLocalHome</local-home>
 <local>examples.webservices.basic.localHome_Object.HelloWor
ldLocal</local>
 <ejb-
class>examples.webservices.basic.localHome_Object.HelloWorl
dLocalBean</ejb-class>
 <session-type>Stateless</session-type>
 <transaction-type>Container</transaction-type>
 </session>
 </enterprise-beans>
 </ejb-jar>
Q&A
Thank you all