What is EJB? Explain the Benefits of EJB

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Short Answer

EJB stands for Enterprise JavaBeans. It’s a server-side software that simplifies building big, complex Java applications.

Benefits of EJB include:

  • Scalability: It can handle more users and data as needed.
  • Simplified Development: It takes care of complex tasks so developers don’t have to.
  • Security: It has built-in ways to keep data safe.

For example, banks use EJB to process lots of transactions while keeping customer information secure.

Detailed Answer

Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) is a server-side software component that encapsulates the business logic of an application. It’s part of the Java EE platform, which provides a standard way to develop enterprise applications.

Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) is a managed, server-side component architecture for modular construction of enterprise applications. The EJB specification is a part of Jakarta EE, formerly Java EE. EJBs are designed to encapsulate the business logic of an application in a distributed, transactional, and secure environment.

There are 3 main types of EJBs

  1. Session Beans: Handle business logic that can be stateless (do not maintain a conversation state with clients) or stateful (maintain state across method calls).
  2. Message-Driven Beans (MDBs): Act as listeners for a particular messaging service, like JMS (Java Messaging Service).
  3. Entity Beans: These were used to represent persistent data and relationships between data before JPA (Java Persistence API) became the preferred approach.

How EJB Benefits developers and businesses?

  1. Scalability: EJBs can handle an increasing number of requests by distributing the load across multiple servers.
  2. Simplified Development: Developers can focus on business logic, while EJB takes care of system-level services like transactions and security.
  3. Security: EJB provides robust security features, ensuring that only authorized users can access certain data and operations.
  4. Transaction Management: EJBs can manage complex transactions automatically.
  5. Persistence: EJBs can handle the storage and retrieval of data from databases, making it easier to build data-driven applications.
  6. Interoperability: EJBs can work with other Java EE components and even with non-Java applications.

For instance, an online shopping platform might use EJBs to manage user accounts, orders, and inventory. The EJBs ensure that when a customer places an order, the inventory is updated, and the transaction is processed securely.

In conclusion, EJB is a powerful technology for building enterprise-level applications in Java. It offers scalability, simplifies development by handling complex services, provides security, and supports transactions and persistence. These features make it a good choice for large-scale applications that need to be reliable and secure.