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Session Beans

by Dale Green

A session bean represents a single client inside the J2EE server. The client accesses remote services by invoking the session bean's methods. The session bean performs work for its client, shielding the client from complexity by executing business tasks inside the server.

As its name suggests, a session bean is similar to an interactive session. A session bean is not shared-it may have just one client, in the same way that an interactive session may have just one user. Like an interactive session, a session bean is not persistent. When the client terminates, its session bean appears to terminate and is no longer associated with the client.

Session beans are powerful because they extend the reach of your clients into remote servers-yet they're easy to build. The following section shows you how to construct a simple session bean.

A Session Bean Example

Session Bean Class

Helper Classes

State Management Modes

Stateful Session Beans

Stateless Session Beans

Choosing Between Stateful and Stateless Session Beans

The Life Cycle of a Session Bean

The Stateful Session Bean Life Cycle

The Stateless Session Bean Life Cycle

Other Enterprise Bean Features

Accessing Environment Entries

Comparing Enterprise Beans

Passing an Enterprise Bean's Object Reference

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