Developing E-commerce applications using EJB with Oracle 8.1.7(JServer)

Specifications:

EJB 1.1 (Oracle 8.1.7)
Servlet 2.2 (Oracle Servlet Engine)

Prerequisites:

• Java Programming Skill
• Basic understanding of Internet based applications
• Familiarity with servlets, JSPs and XML

Course Contents

This section will discuss different types of application architectures and the differences between monolithic, client/server, and n-tier architectures. This would follow the discussion on the role of J2EE for creating n-tier web based applications. All the J2EE components would be briefly described except EJB, which will be discussed in detail in the following sections.

This will be a lab section where students would be introduced to the Oracle 8.1.7 java components like Oracle 8i JVM, Oracle Servlet Engine, etc. Important property files and console screens that would be required to administer Oracle 8.1.7 will also be discussed.

Concepts like distributed object architectures, component models and component transaction monitors will be described followed by explanation on how EJB specification addresses all the above technologies. Differences between CORBA and EJB will also be discussed.

RMI and implementation details on RMI in java will be discussed. During the lab exercise, students will implement sample RMI application, Discussion will continue on how EJB uses RMI for its communication between client and the server.

JNDI is one of the important components for developing Enterprise based application. JNDI implementation in Oracle 8.1.7 and the JNDI APIs that will be used to bind and lookup objects will be discussed in detail.

In this class, students will develop a full-blown e-commerce application. This section will explain the architecture that is going to be used and what can be expected from this application. This will give a very good idea on what will be achieved in the following sections. By explaining the architecture at this early stage, students will be able to relate the discussions on different technologies in the following sections to this demo application. From this point onwards, all the lab exercises will focus only on this demo application.

Explanation will be given on EJB server-container contract, interfaces, implementation details, and clients. This will be a foundation for the lab exercises, which students will be doing in the following sections to complete the demo application. Discussion will be followed on the differences between Entity Beans and Session Beans. Lab exercise will include the task of finding out the appropriate bean to be used when designing application architecture.

This section will analyze the life cycle of entity EJB and implement entity EJB, which is a part of specification for the demo application. Students’ task is to identify the beans that should be implemented as entity EJB in the demo application. Implementation will be a lab exercise.

Like the previous section, this section will analyze the life cycle of session EJB and implement session EJB, which is a part of specification for the demo application. Implementation will be done during the time allocated for lab exercises.

Enabling transaction is one of the important features of an n-tier application. In this section, discussion will be about how we can enable transaction and the different transaction attributes defined in the specification. In the lab exercise, students will transaction enable the demo application, which is being developed.

Students will implement servlet and JSP clients for the EJB, which was created in the previous sections and deploy it in Oracle 8.1.7 Concentration will be on how to program EJB client using servlet and JSPs for the demo application. This would complete the demo application and web enables the application.

EJB 2.0 specification is not supported in Oracle 8.1.7. But an overview of the EJB 2.0 specification and the new features like message driven bean will be discussed. Also architecture issues when designing EJB based applications will be discussed.