This section describes the contents and organization of this guide—Programming Enterprise JavaBeans for Oracle WebLogic Server.
This document is a resource for software developers who develop applications that include WebLogic Server Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs). It also contains information that is useful for business analysts and system architects who are evaluating WebLogic Server or considering the use of WebLogic Server EJBs for a particular application.
The topics in this document are relevant during the design and development phases of a software project. The document also includes topics that are useful in solving application problems that are discovered during test and pre-production phases of a project.
This document does not address production phase administration, monitoring, or performance tuning. For links to WebLogic Server documentation and resources for these topics, see Related Documentation.
It is assumed that the reader is familiar with Java EE and EJB concepts. This document emphasizes the value-added features provided by WebLogic Server EJBs and key information about how to use WebLogic Server features and facilities to get an EJB application up and running.
This chapter, Chapter 1, "Introduction and Roadmap," introduces the organization of this guide.
Chapter 2, "Understanding Enterprise JavaBeans," reviews the different bean types, their capabilities, and how they work with other application objects and WebLogic Server.
Chapter 3, "Designing Enterprise JavaBeans," discusses design options for WebLogic Server Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs), factors to consider during the design process, and recommended design patterns.
Chapter 4, "Implementing Enterprise JavaBeans," describes the EJB implementation process, and provides guidance for how to get an EJB up and running in WebLogic Server.
Chapter 5, "Session EJBs," describes how session beans work within the EJB container, and provides design and development guidelines that are specific to session beans.
Chapter 6, "Entity EJBs," describes how entity beans work within the EJB container, and provides design and development guidelines that are specific to entity beans.
Chapter 7, "Message-Driven EJBs," describes how message-driven beans work within the EJB container, and provides design and development guidelines that are specific to message-driven beans.
Chapter 8, "Deployment Guidelines for Enterprise JavaBeans," discusses EJB-specific deployment issues and procedures.
Chapter A, "Deployment Descriptor Schema and Document Type Definitions Reference," describes the EJB XML Schema Definitions (XSDs) and the namespace declarations that deployment descriptor files must contain.
Appendix B, "weblogic-ejb-jar.xml Deployment Descriptor Reference," describes the EJB 2.x deployment descriptor elements in weblogic-ejb-jar.xml file, the WebLogic Server-specific deployment descriptor.
Appendix C, "weblogic-cmp-jar.xml Deployment Descriptor Reference," describes the EJB 2.x elements in weblogic-cmp-jar.xml file, the WebLogic Server-specific deployment descriptor for container-managed persistence features.
Appendix D, "appc Reference," is a complete reference for the WebLogic Server appc tool for compiling, validating, and generating EJB code.
Appendix E, "EJBGen Reference," is a reference for the WebLogic Server EJBGen EJB 2.x code generator.
Appendix F, "Important Information for EJB 1.1 Users," contains important design and implementation information specific to EJB 1.1.
Appendix G, "EJB Query Language (EJB-QL) and WebLogic Server," discusses issues pertinent to using EJB QL with WebLogic Server.
This document contains EJB-specific design and development information.
For comprehensive guidelines for developing, deploying, and monitoring WebLogic Server applications, see the following documents:
Oracle Fusion Middleware Programming Message-Driven Beans for Oracle WebLogic Server is a resource for developing applications that use message-driven beans (MDBs).
Developing Applications for Oracle WebLogic Server is a guide to developing WebLogic Server applications.
Deploying Applications to Oracle WebLogic Server is the primary source of information about deploying WebLogic Server applications in development and production environments.
Performance and Tuning for Oracle WebLogic Server provides information on how to monitor performance and tune the components in a WebLogic Server.
In addition to this document, Oracle provides a variety of code samples and tutorials for EJB developers. The examples and tutorials illustrate WebLogic Server EJBs in action, and provide practical instructions on how to perform key EJB development tasks.
Oracle recommends that you run some or all of the EJB examples before developing your own EJBs.
MedRec is an end-to-end sample Java EE application shipped with WebLogic Server that simulates an independent, centralized medical record management system. The MedRec application provides a framework for patients, doctors, and administrators to manage patient data using a variety of different clients.
MedRec demonstrates WebLogic Server and Java EE features, and highlights Oracle-recommended best practices. MedRec is included in the WebLogic Server distribution, and can be accessed from the Start menu on Windows machines. For Linux and other platforms, you can start MedRec from the WL_HOME\samples\domains\medrec directory, where WL_HOME is the top-level installation directory for WebLogic Platform.
MedRec includes a service tier comprised primarily of EJBs that work together to process requests from Web applications, Web services, and workflow applications, and future client applications. The application includes message-driven, stateless session, stateful session, and entity EJBs.
As companion documentation to the MedRec application, Oracle provides tutorials that provide step-by-step procedures for key development tasks, including EJB-specific tasks, such as:
Using EJBGen to Generate EJB deployment descriptors
Exposing a stateless Session EJB as a Web service
Securing EJB resources using the Administration Console
WebLogic Server optionally installs API code examples in WL_HOME\samples\server\examples\src\examples\ejb, where WL_HOME is the top-level directory of your WebLogic Server installation. You can start the examples server, and obtain information about the samples and how to run them from the WebLogic Server Start menu.
For a comprehensive listing of the new WebLogic Server features introduced in this release, see "What's New in WebLogic Server" in What's New in Oracle WebLogic Server.