EJB 3 in Action

tackles EJB 3 and the Java Persistence API head-on, providing practical code samples, real-life scenarios, best practices, design patterns, and performance tuning tips. This book builds on the contributions and strengths of seminal technologies like Spring, Hibernate, and TopLink.

EJB 3 is the most important innovation introduced in Java EE 5.0. EJB 3 simplifies enterprise development, abandoning the complex EJB 2.x model in favor of a lightweight POJO framework. The new API represents a fresh perspective on EJB without sacrificing the mission of enabling business application developers to create robust, scalable, standards-based solutions.

EJB 3 in Action is a fast-paced tutorial, geared toward helping you learn EJB 3 and the Java Persistence API quickly and easily. For newcomers to EJB, this book provides a solid foundation in EJB. For the developer moving to EJB 3 from EJB 2, this book addresses the changes both in the EJB API and in the way the developer should approach EJB and persistence.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 36 Ratings

Fantastic introduction to EJB 3 technology - 2009-04-04
Reviewer Rating:
It's a fantastic introduction to EJB 3. There is a lot of content about JPA, mainly. If you will be starting with EJB 3, this book is really interesting.

I passed on SCBCD after I read this book (and EJB 3 spec).

Great book, must have it - 2009-04-03
Reviewer Rating:
I don't like to read very long reviews, so for people like me, here it goes: if you are new to EJB and want to learn it, definitely buy this book, it's great stuff. If you are looking for SCBCD5 preparation materials, this is the first thing you should look into, unless you are an experienced EJB developer just going for the cert. After reading this, grab the EJB 3.0 specs - you will be able to understand the concepts, the descriptions, basically everything you need to know.

Now the longer one in case you want more information.

The book is very reader friendly, the writing style is light enough to concentrate for long, but very informative nontheless. This is the book you should read when you are an EJB 3.0 greenhorn, it leads you from basic concepts to good knowledge of the topic (EJB core and JPA, additinally mentioning other Java EE elements like connectors and web modules), with easily uderstandable and short examples along the way. Pretty good introduction to JMS if the reader is not familiar with it is also a big plus for me. Also, the book uses Java 5 features (just as EJB 3.0 do), and if the reader is not familiar with them, there is a short introduction, and the code throughout the book uses it (enums, foreach loops...), which is nice.

I have read a few EJB books, and this one has some unique features - many chapters are summarized with best practices, a short discussion of pros and cons of the approaches shown. Also, very good chapters on EJB 3.0 to EJB 2.1 (and earlier) migration / integration (both ways, i.e. how to use EJB 3.0 in a EJB 2.1 application and vice versa), and a whole chapter dedicated to comparing EJB with Spring, explaining how the two can cooperate and ways to integrate them (versions of Spring discussed are 1.2 and 2.0). At the end, in the appendices, the user can find all deployement descriptor's reference (ejb-jar.xml, persistence.xml and mappings), which is much more edible than reading their respective XSDs. Also, I liked the part on packaging and class-loaders, which gives you some insight into how application servers usually handle this, and how to use it in case of a multi-module application (for instance, how to package everything so that your web module can see and use your entities and your ejbs).

If the user has further questions to ask, or any doubts, they can visit the authors online forum (with the outhors actively contributing to discussions). If this not enough, Javaranch forums are also very helpful, and Reza Rahman (one of the authors) visits it very often. The opportunity to talk to the authors is a good thing, and makes you feel the technology is not that hard to learn - they are real people, after all ;-0

What I didn't like was something a few Amazon reviews pointed out already - telling what we will learn next, and in the next section, repeating what we have just learned. That's the only thing, and it's not a big issue.

All in all, I value this book very much, and it is a fairly earned 5-star review.

A book for those who want to get fast up with EJB 3 - 2009-04-15
Reviewer Rating:
I recently got this book to speed up with EJB3 instead of reading all the JavaEE specs and making the wrong assumptions. This books takes you on a fantastic JavaEE journey and makes you able to play with JavaEE after the end of that journey.

Excellent book for SCBCD .... and SCEA too !! - 2009-06-30
Reviewer Rating:
I can say only one thing: This book is really excellent !!

I wanted to upgrade my SCBCD certification to EJB3 but I did not know which book I should read..so, after reading some good and bad reviews about the book.

I gave it a try..and I started reading. Finding out that it's easy to understand, easy to follow and I would say that it does not matter if you are a beginner or advance in EJB programming.

This book really helps you to understand, it guides you in every chapter. I gave the book to my brother so he may learn EJB and get the certification soon. He is beginner in EJB and he has told me good things about the book.

I did read it twice for my certification, except some chapters that are not part of the exam. For example Spring and EJB but I'll give a try later ;)

Definitely I recommend it...

For those who are interested in SCEA certification...this book is also a GOOD option.

Too many comparisons of EJB2 make this book boring. - 2009-06-25
Reviewer Rating:
This is a good book in general. Yet the author spent too many pages comparing EJB 2 and EJB 3 and keep telling people why EJB 2 is so bad. Such complaints about EJB 2 makes a quite large part of the first part of the book, which is too boring for people not coming from the EJB 2 world. Maybe "From EJB2 to EJB3" is a better title for the book.

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