Use the refresh-period-in-seconds element in the sun-ejb-jar.xml file to refresh a read-only bean periodically.
If the value specified in refresh-period-in-seconds is zero or not specified, which is the default, the bean is never refreshed (unless a transactional method is accessed).
If the value is greater than zero, the bean is refreshed at the rate specified.
This is the only way to refresh the bean state if the data can be modified external to the Application Server.