Transactions

A transaction is a series of actions in a Java EE application that must all complete successfully or else all the changes in each action are backed out. Transactions end in either a commit or a rollback.

The Java Transaction API (JTA) allows applications to access transactions in a manner that is independent of specific implementations. JTA specifies standard Java interfaces between a transaction manager and the parties involved in a distributed transaction system: the transactional application, the Java EE server, and the manager that controls access to the shared resources affected by the transactions.

The JTA defines the UserTransaction interface that is used by applications to start, and commit or abort transactions. Application components get a UserTransaction object through a JNDI lookup using the name java:comp/UserTransaction or by requesting injection of a UserTransaction object. A number of interfaces defined by JTA are used by an application server to communicate with a transaction manager, and for a transaction manager to interact with a resource manager.

See the Chapter 27, Transactions chapter for a more detailed explanation. The JTA 1.1 specification is available at http://java.sun.com/javaee/technologies/jta/index.jsp.