1 Introduction and Roadmap

RSS.This section describes the contents and organization of this guide—Programming Enterprise JavaBeans, Version 3.0, for Oracle WebLogic Server.

Document Scope and Audience
Guide to this Document
Related Documentation
Comprehensive Example for the EJB 3.0 Developer
New and Changed Features in this Release

Document Scope and Audience

This document is a resource for software developers who develop applications that include WebLogic Server Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs), Version 3.0.

The document mostly discusses the new EJB 3.0 programming model, in particular the use of metadata annotations to simplify development. The document briefly discusses the main differences between EJB 3.0 and 2.X for users who are familiar with programming EJB 2.X and want to know why they might want to use the new 3.0 programming model.

This document does not address EJB topics that are the same between versions 2.X and 3.0, such as design considerations, EJB container architecture, deployment descriptor use, and so on. This document also 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 Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) Version 5 and EJB 2.X concepts.

Guide to this Document

This chapter, Chapter 1, "Introduction and Roadmap," introduces the organization of this guide.
Chapter 2, "Understanding Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0," provides an overview of the new EJB 3.0 features and programming model, as well as a brief description of the differences between EJB 3.0 and 2.X.
Chapter 3, "Simple Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0 Examples," provides simple examples of programming EJBs using the new metadata annotations specified by EJB 3.0.
Chapter 4, "Iterative Development of Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0," describes the EJB implementation process, and provides guidance for how to get an EJB up and running in WebLogic Server.
Chapter 5, "Programming the Annotated EJB 3.0 Class," describes the requirements and typical steps when programming the EJB bean class that contains the metadata annotations.
Chapter 6, "Using Oracle TopLink with Oracle WebLogic Server," provides an overview of developing an Oracle TopLink application using Oracle WebLogic Server.
Chapter 7, "Using Oracle Kodo with WebLogic Server," describes how to use Oracle Kodo to create entity beans. Oracle Kodo is a product that provides the implementation of the Java Persistence API section of the EJB 3.0 specification, as well as other persistence-related technologies such as Java Data Objects (JDO).
Appendix A, "EJB 3.0 Metadata Annotations Reference," provides reference information for the EJB 3.0 metadata annotations, as well as information about standard metadata annotations that are used by EJB.
Appendix B, "Persistence Configuration Schema Reference," provides reference information for the persistence configuration schema.

Comprehensive Example for the EJB 3.0 Developer

In addition to this document and the basic examples described in Chapter 3, "Simple Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0 Examples," Oracle provides a comprehensive example in the WebLogic Server distribution kit. The example illustrates EJB 3.0 in action and provides practical instructions on how to perform key EJB 3.0 development tasks. In particular, the example demonstrates usage of EJB 3.0 with:

Java Persistence API
Stateless Session Bean
Message Driven Bean
Asynchronous JavaScript based browser application.

The example uses a persistent domain model for entity EJBs.

WebLogic Server optionally installs this comprehensive example in WL_HOME\samples\server\examples\src\examples\ejb\ejb30, where WL_HOME is the top-level directory of your WebLogic Server installation. On Windows, you can start the examples server, and obtain information about the samples and how to run them from the WebLogic Server Start menu.

Oracle recommends that you run this example before programming your own application that uses EJB 3.0.

New and Changed Features in this Release

For a comprehensive listing of the new WebLogic Server features introduced in this release, see "What's New in Oracle WebLogic Server" in Oracle Fusion Middleware What's New in Oracle WebLogic Server.