GLOSSARY

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Access control

The methods by which interactions with resources are limited to collections of users or programs for the purpose of enforcing integrity, confidentiality, or availability constraints.

ACID

The acronym for the four properties guaranteed by transactions: atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability.

activation

The process of transferring an enterprise bean from secondary storage to memory. (See passivation.)

applet

A component that typically executes in a web browser, but can execute in a variety of other applications or devices that support the applet programming model.

applet container

A container that includes support for the applet programming model.

Application Component Provider

A vendor that provides the Java classes that implement components' methods, JSP page definitions, and any required deployment descriptors.

Application Assembler

A person that combines components and modules into deployable application units.

application client

A first-tier client component that executes in its own Java virtual machine. Application clients have access to some (JNDI, JDBC, RMI-IIOP, JMS) J2EE platform APIs.

application client container

A container that supports application client components.

application client module

A software unit that consists of one or more classes and an application client deployment descriptor.

authentication

The process by which an entity proves to another entity that it is acting on behalf of a specific identity. The J2EE platform requires three types of authentication: basic, form-based, and mutual, and supports digest authentication.

authorization

See access control.

authorization constraint

An authorization rule that determines who is permitted to access a web resource collection.

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basic authentication

An authentication mechanism in which a web server authenticates an entity with a user name and password obtained using the web client's built-in authentication mechanism.

bean-managed persistence

Data transfer between an entity bean's variables and a resource manager managed by the entity bean.

bean-managed transaction

A transaction whose boundaries are defined by an enterprise bean.

business logic

The code that implements the functionality of an application. In the Enterprise JavaBeans model, this logic is implemented by the methods of an enterprise bean.

business method

A method of an enterprise bean that implements the business logic or rules of an application.

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callback methods

Component methods called by the container to notify the component of important events in its life cycle.

caller

Same as caller principal.

caller principal

The principal that identifies the invoker of the enterprise bean method.

client certificate authentication

An authentication mechanism in which a client uses a X.509 certificate to establish its identity.

commit

The point in a transaction when all updates to any resources involved in the transaction are made permanent.

component

An application-level software unit supported by a container. Components are configurable at deployment time. The J2EE platform defines four types of components: enterprise beans, web components, applets, and application clients.

component contract

The contract between a component and its container. The contract includes: life cycle management of the component, a context interface that the instance uses to obtain various information and services from its container, and a list of services that every container must provide for its components.

connection

See resource manager connection.

connection factory

See resource manager connection factory.

connector

A standard extension mechanism for containers to provide connectivity to enterprise information systems. A connector is specific to an enterprise information system and consists of a resource adapter and application development tools for enterprise information system connectivity. The resource adapter is plugged in to a container through its support for system-level contracts defined in the connector architecture.

Connector architecture

An architecture for integration of J2EE products with enterprise information systems. There are two parts to this architecture: a resource adapter provided by an enterprise information system vendor and the J2EE product that allows this resource adapter to plug in. This architecture defines a set of contracts that a resource adapter has to support to plug in to a J2EE product, for example, transactions, security, and resource management.

container

An entity that provides life cycle management, security, deployment, and runtime services to components. Each type of container ( EJB, web, JSP, servlet, applet, and application client) also provides component-specific services.

container-managed persistence

Data transfer between an entity bean's variables and a resource manager managed by the entity bean's container.

container-managed transaction

A transaction whose boundaries are defined by an EJB container. An entity bean must use container-managed transactions.

context attribute

An object bound into the context associated with a servlet.

conversational state

The field values of a session bean plus the transitive closure of the objects reachable from the bean's fields. The transitive closure of a bean is defined in terms of the serialization protocol for the Java programming language, that is, the fields that would be stored by serializing the bean instance.

CORBA

Common Object Request Broker Architecture. A language independent, distributed object model specified by the Object Management Group.

create method

A method defined in the home interface and invoked by a client to create an enterprise bean.

credentials

The information describing the security attributes of a principal.

CTS

Compatibility Test Suite. A suite of compatibility tests for verifying that a J2EE product complies with the J2EE platform specification.

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delegation

An act whereby one principal authorizes another principal to use its identity or privileges with some restrictions.

Deployer

A person who installs modules and J2EE applications into an operational environment.

deployment

The process whereby software is installed into an operational environment.

deployment descriptor

An XML file provided with each module and application that describes how they should be deployed. The deployment descriptor directs a deployment tool to deploy a module or application with specific container options and describes specific configuration requirements that a Deployer must resolve.

destination

A JMS administered object that encapsulates the identity of a JMS queue or topic. See point-to-point messaging system, publish/subscribe messaging system.

digest authentication

An authentication mechanism in which a web client authenticates to a web server by sending the server a message digest along its HTTP request message. The digest is computed by employing a one-way hash algorithm to a concatenation of the HTTP request message and the client's password. The digest is typically much smaller than the HTTP request, and doesn't contain the password.

distributed application

An application made up of distinct components running in separate runtime environments, usually on different platforms connected via a network. Typical distributed applications are two-tier (client-server), three-tier (client-middleware-server), and multitier (client-multiple middleware-multiple servers).

DOM

Document Object Model. A tree of objects with interfaces for traversing the tree and writing an XML version of it, as defined by the W3C specification.

DTD

Document Type Definition. A description of the structure and properties of a class of XML files.

durable subscription

In a JMS publish/subscribe messaging system, a subscription that continues to exist whether or not there is a current active subscriber object. If there is no active subscriber, JMS retains the subscription's messages until they are received by the subscription or until they expire.

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EAR file

A JAR archive that contains a J2EE application.

EJB

See Enterprise Java Beans.

EJB container

A container that implements the EJB component contract of the J2EE architecture. This contract specifies a runtime environment for enterprise beans that includes security, concurrency, life cycle management, transaction, deployment, naming, and other services. An EJB container is provided by an EJB or J2EE server.

EJB Container Provider

A vendor that supplies an EJB container.

EJB context

An object that allows an enterprise bean to invoke services provided by the container and to obtain the information about the caller of a client-invoked method.

EJB home object

An object that provides the life cycle operations (create, remove, find) for an enterprise bean. The class for the EJB home object is generated by the container's deployment tools. The EJB home object implements the enterprise bean's home interface. The client references an EJB home object to perform life cycle operations on an EJB object. The client uses JNDI to locate an EJB home object.

EJB JAR file

A JAR archive that contains an EJB module.

EJB module

A software unit that consists of one or more enterprise beans and an EJB deployment descriptor.

EJB object

An object whose class implements the enterprise bean's remote interface. A client never references an enterprise bean instance directly; a client always references an EJB object. The class of an EJB object is generated by a container's deployment tools.

EJB server

Software provides services to an EJB container. For example, an EJB container typically relies on a transaction manager that is part of the EJB server to perform the two-phase commit across all the participating resource managers. The J2EE architecture assumes that an EJB container is hosted by an EJB server from the same vendor, so does not specify the contract between these two entities. An EJB server may host one or more EJB containers.

EJB Server Provider

A vendor that supplies an EJB server.

enterprise bean

A component that implements a business task or business entity and resides in an EJB container; either an entity bean or a session bean.

enterprise information system

The applications that comprise an enterprise's existing system for handling company-wide information. These applications provide an information infrastructure for an enterprise. An enterprise information system offers a well defined set of services to its clients. These services are exposed to clients as local and/or remote interfaces. Examples of enterprise information systems include: enterprise resource planning systems, mainframe transaction processing systems, and legacy database systems.

enterprise information system resource

An entity that provides enterprise information system-specific functionality to its clients. Examples are: a record or set of records in a database system, a business object in an enterprise resource planning system, and a transaction program in a transaction processing system.

Enterprise Bean Provider

An application programmer who produces enterprise bean classes, remote and home interfaces, and deployment descriptor files, and packages them in an EJB JAR file.

Enterprise Java Beans (EJB)

A component architecture for the development and deployment of object-oriented, distributed, enterprise-level applications. Applications written using the Enterprise JavaBeans architecture are scalable, transactional, and secure.

entity bean

An enterprise bean that represents persistent data maintained in a database. An entity bean can manage its own persistence or it can delegate this function to its container. An entity bean is identified by a primary key. If the container in which an entity bean is hosted crashes, the entity bean, its primary key, and any remote references survive the crash.

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finder method

A method defined in the home interface and invoked by a client to locate an entity bean.

form-based authentication

An authentication mechanism in which a web container provides an application-specific form for logging in.

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group

A collection of principals within a given security policy domain.

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handle

An object that identifies an enterprise bean. A client may serialize the handle, and then later deserialize it to obtain a reference to the enterprise bean.

home interface

One of two interfaces for an enterprise bean. The home interface defines zero or more methods for managing an enterprise bean. The home interface of a session bean defines create and remove methods, while the home interface of an entity bean defines create, finder, and remove methods

home handle

An object that can be used to obtain a reference of the home interface. A home handle can be serialized and written to stable storage and deserialized to obtain the reference.

HTML

Hypertext Markup Language. A markup language for hypertext documents on the Internet. HTML enables the embedding of images, sounds, video streams, form fields, references to other objects with URLs and basic text formatting.

HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The Internet protocol used to fetch hypertext objects from remote hosts. HTTP messages consist of requests from client to server and responses from server to client.

HTTPS

HTTP layered over the SSL protocol.

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impersonation

An act whereby one entity assumes the identity and privileges of another entity without restrictions and without any indication visible to the recipients of the impersonator's calls that delegation has taken place. Impersonation is a case of simple delegation.

IDL

Interface Definition Language. A language used to define interfaces to remote CORBA objects. The interfaces are independent of operating systems and programming languages.

IIOP

Internet Inter-ORB Protocol. A protocol used for communication between CORBA object request brokers.

initialization parameter

A parameter that initializes the context associated with a servlet.

ISV

Independent Software Vendor.

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J2EE

Java 2, Enterprise Edition.

J2ME

Java 2, Micro Edition.

J2SE

Java 2, Standard Edition.

J2EE application

Any deployable unit of J2EE functionality. This can be a single module or a group of modules packaged into an .ear file with a J2EE application deployment descriptor. J2EE applications are typically engineered to be distributed across multiple computing tiers.

J2EE product

An implementation that conforms to the J2EE platform specification.

J2EE Product Provider

A vendor that supplies a J2EE product.

J2EE server

The runtime portion of a J2EE product. A J2EE server provides EJB and/or web containers.

JAR Java ARchive

A platform-independent file format that permits many files to be aggregated into one file.

Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE platform)

The core Java technology platform.

Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE platform)

An environment for developing and deploying enterprise applications. The J2EE platform consists of a set of services, application programming interfaces (APIs), and protocols that provide the functionality for developing multitiered, web-based applications.

Java 2 SDK, Enterprise Edition (J2EE SDK)

Sun's implementation of the J2EE platform. This implementation provides an operational definition of the J2EE platform.

Java Message Service (JMS)

An API for using enterprise messaging systems such as IBM MQ Series, TIBCO Rendezvous, and so on.

Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI)

An API that provides naming and directory functionality.

Java Transaction API (JTA)

An API that allows applications and J2EE servers to access transactions.

Java Transaction Service (JTS)

Specifies the implementation of a transaction manager which supports JTA and implements the Java mapping of the OMG Object Transaction Service (OTS) 1.1 specification at the level below the API.

Java Beans component

A Java class that can be manipulated in a visual builder tool and composed into applications. A JavaBeans component must adhere to certain property and event interface conventions.

Java IDL

A technology that provides CORBA interoperability and connectivity capabilities for the J2EE platform. These capabilities enable J2EE applications to invoke operations on remote network services using the OMG IDL and IIOP.

Java Mail

An API for sending and receiving email.

Java Server Pages (JSP)

An extensible web technology that uses template data, custom elements, scripting languages, and server-side Java objects to return dynamic content to a client. Typically the template data is HTML or XML elements, and in many cases the client is a web browser.

JDBC

An API for database-independent connectivity between the J2EE platform and a wide range of data sources.

JMS

See Java Message Service.

JMS administered object

A preconfigured JMS object (a resource manager connection factory or a destination) created by an administrator for the use of JMS clients and placed in a JNDI namespace.

JMS application

One or more JMS clients that exchange messages.

JMS client

A Java language program that sends and/or receives messages.

JMS provider

A messaging system that implements the Java Message Service as well as other administrative and control functionality needed in a full-featured messaging product.

JMS session

A single-threaded context for sending and receiving JMS messages. A JMS session can be non-transacted, locally transacted, or participating in a distributed ttransaction.

JNDI

See Java Naming and Directory Interface.

JSP

See JavaServer Pages

JSP action

A JSP element that can act on implicit objects and other server-side objects or can define new scripting variables. Actions follow the XML syntax for elements with a start tag, a body and an end tag; if the body is empty it can also use the empty tag syntax. The tag must use a prefix.

JSP action, custom

An action described in a portable manner by a tag library descriptor and a collection of Java classes and imported into a JSP page by a taglib directive. A custom action is invoked when a JSP page uses a custom tag.

JSP action, standard

An action that is defined in the JSP specificati on and is always available to a JSP file without being imported.

JSP application

A stand-alone web application, written using the JavaServer Pages technology, that can contain JSP pages, servlets, HTML files, images, applets, and JavaBeans components.

JSP container

A container that provides the same services as a servlet container and an engine that interprets and processes JSP pages into a servlet.

JSP container, distributed

A JSP container that can run a web application that is tagged as distributable and is spread across multiple Java virtual machines that might be running on different hosts.

JSP declaration

A JSP scripting element that declares methods, variables, or both in a JSP file.

JSP directive

A JSP element that gives an instruction to the JSP container and is interpreted at translation time.

JSP element

A portion of a JSP page that is recognized by a JSP translator. An element can be a directive, an action, or a scripting element.

JSP expression

A scripting element that contains a valid scripting language expression that is evaluated, converted to a String, and placed into the implicit out object.

JSP file

A file that contains a JSP page. In the Servlet 2.2 specification, a JSP file must have a .jsp extension.

JSP page

A text-based document using fixed template data and JSP elements that describes how to process a request to create a response.

JSP scripting element

A JSP declaration, scriptlet, or expression, whose tag syntax is defined by the JSP specification, and whose content is written according to the scripting language used in the JSP page. The JSP specification describes the syntax and semantics for the case where the language page attribute is "java".

JSP scriptlet

A JSP scripting element containing any code fragment that is valid in the scripting language used in the JSP page. The JSP specification describes what is a valid scriptlet for the case where the language page attribute is "java".

JSP tag

A piece of text between a left angle bracket and a right angle bracket that is used in a JSP file as part of a JSP element. The tag is distinguishable as markup, as opposed to data, because it is surrounded by angle brackets.

JSP tag library

A collection of custom tags identifying custom actions described via a tag library descriptor and Java classes.

JTA

See Java Transaction API.

JTS

See Java Transaction Service.

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message

In the Java Message Service, an asynchronous request, report, or event that is created, sent, and consumed by an enterprise application, not by a human. It contains vital information needed to coordinate enterprise applications, in the form of precisely formatted data that describes specific business actions.

MessageConsumer

An object created by a JMS session that is used for receiving messages sent to a destination.

Message Producer

An object created by a JMS session that is used for sending messages to a destination.

method permission

An authorization rule that determines who is permitted to execute one or more enterprise bean methods.

module

A software unit that consists of one or more J2EE components of the same container type and one deployment descriptor of that type. There are three types of modules: EJB, web, and application client. Modules can be deployed as stand-alone units or assembled into an application.

mutual authentication

An authentication mechanism employed by two parties for the purpose of proving each other's identity to one another.

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naming context

A set of associations between distinct, atomic people-friendly identifiers and objects.

naming environment

A mechanism that allows a component to be customized without the need to access or change the component's source code. A container implements the component's naming environment, and provides it to the component as a JNDI naming context. Each component names and accesses its environment entries using the java:comp/env JNDI context. The environment entries are declaratively specified in the component's deployment descriptor.

non-JMS client

A messaging client program that uses a message system's native client API instead of the Java Message Service.

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ORB

Object Request Broker. A library than enables CORBA objects to locate and communicate with one another.

OS principal

A principal native to the operating system on which the J2EE platform is executing.

OTS

Object Transaction Service. A definition of the interfaces that permit CORBA objects to participate in transactions.

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passivation

The process of transferring an enterprise bean from memory to secon