Using JDO in Enterprise JavaBeans

Abstract

Contrary to a common misconception, JDO is not a replacement for Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs). The EJB specification is primarily concerned with sharing access to remote objects and controlling distributed transactions, while JDO is primarily concerned with an object’s relationship to persistent storage. Nevertheless, EJB containers and JDO provide overlapping services for managing objects. Both provide transactional semantics for objects, and both entity beans and persistent objects have mechanisms that tie object state to persistent storage. Although the overlap in services fosters the misconception that JDO and EJBs are in competition, in fact, JDO can be used with EJBs, and to some extent, it eases their development.