Skip to main content
Redhat Developers  Logo
  • Products

    Featured

    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
      Red Hat Enterprise Linux Icon
    • Red Hat OpenShift AI
      Red Hat OpenShift AI
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI
      Linux icon inside of a brain
    • Image mode for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
      RHEL image mode
    • Red Hat OpenShift
      Openshift icon
    • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
      Ansible icon
    • Red Hat Developer Hub
      Developer Hub
    • View All Red Hat Products
    • Linux

      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
      • Image mode for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
      • Red Hat Universal Base Images (UBI)
    • Java runtimes & frameworks

      • JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
      • Red Hat build of OpenJDK
    • Kubernetes

      • Red Hat OpenShift
      • Microsoft Azure Red Hat OpenShift
      • Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization
      • Red Hat OpenShift Lightspeed
    • Integration & App Connectivity

      • Red Hat Build of Apache Camel
      • Red Hat Service Interconnect
      • Red Hat Connectivity Link
    • AI/ML

      • Red Hat OpenShift AI
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI
    • Automation

      • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
      • Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed
    • Developer tools

      • Red Hat Trusted Software Supply Chain
      • Podman Desktop
      • Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces
    • Developer Sandbox

      Developer Sandbox
      Try Red Hat products and technologies without setup or configuration fees for 30 days with this shared Openshift and Kubernetes cluster.
    • Try at no cost
  • Technologies

    Featured

    • AI/ML
      AI/ML Icon
    • Linux
      Linux Icon
    • Kubernetes
      Cloud icon
    • Automation
      Automation Icon showing arrows moving in a circle around a gear
    • View All Technologies
    • Programming Languages & Frameworks

      • Java
      • Python
      • JavaScript
    • System Design & Architecture

      • Red Hat architecture and design patterns
      • Microservices
      • Event-Driven Architecture
      • Databases
    • Developer Productivity

      • Developer productivity
      • Developer Tools
      • GitOps
    • Secure Development & Architectures

      • Security
      • Secure coding
    • Platform Engineering

      • DevOps
      • DevSecOps
      • Ansible automation for applications and services
    • Automated Data Processing

      • AI/ML
      • Data Science
      • Apache Kafka on Kubernetes
      • View All Technologies
    • Start exploring in the Developer Sandbox for free

      sandbox graphic
      Try Red Hat's products and technologies without setup or configuration.
    • Try at no cost
  • Learn

    Featured

    • Kubernetes & Cloud Native
      Openshift icon
    • Linux
      Rhel icon
    • Automation
      Ansible cloud icon
    • Java
      Java icon
    • AI/ML
      AI/ML Icon
    • View All Learning Resources

    E-Books

    • GitOps Cookbook
    • Podman in Action
    • Kubernetes Operators
    • The Path to GitOps
    • View All E-books

    Cheat Sheets

    • Linux Commands
    • Bash Commands
    • Git
    • systemd Commands
    • View All Cheat Sheets

    Documentation

    • API Catalog
    • Product Documentation
    • Legacy Documentation
    • Red Hat Learning

      Learning image
      Boost your technical skills to expert-level with the help of interactive lessons offered by various Red Hat Learning programs.
    • Explore Red Hat Learning
  • Developer Sandbox

    Developer Sandbox

    • Access Red Hat’s products and technologies without setup or configuration, and start developing quicker than ever before with our new, no-cost sandbox environments.
    • Explore Developer Sandbox

    Featured Developer Sandbox activities

    • Get started with your Developer Sandbox
    • OpenShift virtualization and application modernization using the Developer Sandbox
    • Explore all Developer Sandbox activities

    Ready to start developing apps?

    • Try at no cost
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Videos

Jakarta EE: What's in store for Enterprise JavaBeans?

October 22, 2019
Rhuan Rocha
Related topics:
Java
Related products:
Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform

Share:

    Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) has been very important to the Java EE ecosystem and promoted many robust solutions to enterprise problems. Besides that, in the past when integration techniques were not so advanced, EJB did great work with remote EJB, integrating many Java EE applications. However, remote EJB is not necessary anymore, and we have many techniques and tools that are better for doing that. So, does EJB still have a place in this new cloud-native world?

    Before writing this post, I did an informal survey via Twitter poll to hear what the community thinks about it. In this article, I'll share the results of the survey as well as some discussion that emerged as part of the poll. Additionally, I'll share my opinions on the topic.

    Twitter survey

    Here is the question I asked in the survey along with the results (from 385 respondents):

    We had many changes in the Java ecosystem mainly in Java enterprise. But what do you think about the EJB future? Do you think EJB has its place in this new cloud-native world? 

    1. Yes, but needs updates .....29%
    2. No, EJB is unnecessary ....50%
    3. Yes, it's very useful ............17%
    4. Other ...................................4%

    As you can see, option 2 is the winner, and the majority of respondents think EJB is unnecessary. However, it's the winner with 50% of the vote, which means that 50% of respondents think EJB is necessary in some way or have some other opinion. That's not the only interesting thing in this survey, though; the other interesting thing was the discussion emerged from this survey about getting the interesting features from EJB and distributing them to other specs with more affinity. But before we get into this discussion, I'll share my opinion and explain why I think this.

    My vote

    My vote is for option 1 (Yes, but needs updates), because although EJB is an old technology, it has many features that are useful to the enterprise environment. But EJB can be sanitized to offer these features in a lighter technology. Here's a list of EJB's interesting features:

    • Asynchronous invocation: Is useful when you want to make a non-blocking call to some method.
    • Stateless EJBs pool: Optimizes memory use, promoting reuse of stateless EJB objects.
    • @Startup to call a method at startup time: Is useful when we want to execute something at startup time.
    • EJB timer: Is a good feature to schedule a process to execute according to some configuration.
    • Singleton: Is useful when we want only one instance of an object to all applications. Furthermore, it has the method lock feature that is useful when we need to control concurrent access to some method.
    • Message-driven bean (MDB): Is very useful to consume JMS queues and topics. It promotes a simple interface with a high level of abstraction to consume JMS.
    • Transaction management: Is useful to manage transactions with databases and resources (like JMS). It promotes a high level of abstraction to work with transnational processes.

    These features are useful to the current scenario of the enterprise world, and having these features in a spec-based solution is good for the Java ecosystem. Many people have noted that Spring and other frameworks already have these features, but they are important features to have in a spec-based solution (like Jakarta EE) as well, because spec solutions are multi-vendor solutions and not coupled with a specific vendor.

    Conclusion

    The interesting EJB features should survive, whether they have the EJB name or not. The idea of getting the interesting features from EJB and distributing them to other specs with more affinity is amazing and means we will have these important features in the Jakarta EE, but in lighter and more organized APIs. This is a good chance to evolve the Jakarta EE feature set to promote lighter, more cohesive Jakarta EE components and APIs.

    Note: All content in this article is my opinion and does not necessarily represent the views of Red Hat.

    Last updated: July 1, 2020

    Recent Posts

    • Assessing AI for OpenShift operations: Advanced configurations

    • OpenShift Lightspeed: Assessing AI for OpenShift operations

    • OpenShift Data Foundation and HashiCorp Vault securing data

    • Axolotl meets LLM Compressor: Fast, sparse, open

    • What’s new for developers in Red Hat OpenShift 4.19

    Red Hat Developers logo LinkedIn YouTube Twitter Facebook

    Products

    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
    • Red Hat OpenShift
    • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

    Build

    • Developer Sandbox
    • Developer Tools
    • Interactive Tutorials
    • API Catalog

    Quicklinks

    • Learning Resources
    • E-books
    • Cheat Sheets
    • Blog
    • Events
    • Newsletter

    Communicate

    • About us
    • Contact sales
    • Find a partner
    • Report a website issue
    • Site Status Dashboard
    • Report a security problem

    RED HAT DEVELOPER

    Build here. Go anywhere.

    We serve the builders. The problem solvers who create careers with code.

    Join us if you’re a developer, software engineer, web designer, front-end designer, UX designer, computer scientist, architect, tester, product manager, project manager or team lead.

    Sign me up

    Red Hat legal and privacy links

    • About Red Hat
    • Jobs
    • Events
    • Locations
    • Contact Red Hat
    • Red Hat Blog
    • Inclusion at Red Hat
    • Cool Stuff Store
    • Red Hat Summit

    Red Hat legal and privacy links

    • Privacy statement
    • Terms of use
    • All policies and guidelines
    • Digital accessibility

    Report a website issue