An EJB-compliant application server is known as an EJB
server. An EJB server could be a transaction processing monitor such
as CICS®, a Web server, a database, or some other type of server. Note that
a CICS EJB server may comprise multiple CICS regions, as described in Logical servers—enterprise beans in a sysplex.
An EJB server provides a standard set of services to support enterprise
bean components. These services include:
- Support of the Java™ Remote Method Invocation (RMI) interface that
is used by enterprise beans for communication. RMI has two transport protocol
options—JRMP for Java-to-Java interoperation and IIOP for interlanguage
interoperation, mediated using a CORBA Object Request Broker (ORB). (For a
description of the CICS ORB, see The Object Request Broker (ORB).)
CICS Transaction Server for z/OS®, Version 3 Release 1 supports
RMI over IIOP (RMI-IIOP), but not JRMP. (JRMP is a proprietary protocol
that cannot be used to interoperate with non-Java components. CICS does not
support distributed transactions over JRMP.)
- A container, called an EJB container, which provides
management services for enterprise beans.
- A distributed transaction management service that implements the javax.transaction.UserTransaction
interface of the Java Transaction API (JTA).1
- Security services.
- Support for the Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI). The JNDI API
provides directory and naming functionality for Java applications. It enables
a client to locate an enterprise bean.
- Support for the Java Data Base Connectivity (JDBC) interface.