#Stateless bean with #EJB guaranteed to be a unique ejb instance? - ejb

I was wondering... Let's say that I have two stateless beans in ejb 3.1:
#Stateless
Class1
#EJB MyUniqueInstanceBean uniqueBean1;
2.
#Stateless
Class2
#EJB MyUniqueInstanceBean uniqueBean2;
Are uniqueBean1 and uniqueBean2 guaranteed to be unique instances of MyUniqueInstanceBean?

If MyUniqueInstanceBean is Stateless it is not in your hands are calls to uniquebean1 and uniquebean2 actually calls to same instance. In EJB 3.1 specification this is told with following words:
Because all instances of a stateless session bean are equivalent,
the container can choose to delegate a client-invoked method to any
available instance. This means, for example, that the container may
delegate the requests from the same client within the same transaction
to different instances, and that the container may interleave requests
from multiple transactions to the same instance.
If MyUniqueInstanceBean is Stateful, it is guaranteed that uniquebean1 and uniquebean2 do not refer to same instance. Again from specification:
A session bean instance’s life starts when a client obtains a
reference to a stateful session bean instance through dependency
injection or JNDI lookup, or when the client invokes a create method on the session bean’s home interface. This causes
the container to invoke newInstance on the session bean class to
create a new session bean instance.
If you are using Singleton, then both refer to same instance, because there is only one instance:
A Singleton session bean is a session bean component that is
instantiated once per application. In cases where the container is
distributed over many virtual machines, each application will have one
bean instance of the Singleton for each JVM.

Related

How #EJB annotation is processed in EJB container 3.x from the moment when we deploy ejb components?

Questions about ejb session bean behavior when used as injected bean instances.
I'm not 100% sure how this works. I guess it from practice and from reading documents on the subject.
I want to know how #EJB annotation is processed by container in detail.
Session bean have interfaces, impl class, deployment descriptor. We package them in ejb jar.
What is putted in global JNDI by container? Static references to
business interfaces ?
How and when global JNDI is read from ?
When component JNDI ENC is populated with ejb reference ?
Is this reference in JNDI ENC (java:comp/env/beanB) is reference to
session bean component interface, session bean instance proxy or
session bean instance ? Is there difference for SLSB and SFSB ?
With #EJB annotation on field does every new ejb session bean
instance get new instance of injected ejb in the annotated field or
all ejb instances share the same injected ejb session bean instance
?
Does ejb injection by lookup (on session context) provide always new
injected ejb instance, example: calling ctx.lookup(ejbReference) in
loop ?
In EJB 3.0, the JNDI names are vendor-specific (if available at all; in theory, a container could support EJB references only), but vendors typically return an EJB reference/proxy. In EJB 3.1, the specification requires the EJB container to make specific java:global, java:app, and java:module names available, and the object returned from these lookups must be an EJB reference/proxy.
The global JNDI is accessed when you perform a JNDI lookup. The container might access the global JNDI names in other cases (e.g., when resolving #EJB(lookup="java:app/...")).
It's undefined when the container populates java:, but the contents must be available before lifecycle callback or business methods are invoked on the component instance.
#EJB/<ejb-ref>/<ejb-local-ref> ensure lookups always return an EJB reference/proxy and never an actual bean instance. The proxy ensures that all container services are performed (security, transaction, remoting, etc.) before invoking an actual bean instance. For SLSB, an arbitrary bean instance will be invoked, and the same or different actual instance might be invoked depending on the thread, concurrency, timing, vendor-specific configuration, etc. For SFSB, a bean instance with a specific identity will be invoked; you are likely to get the same bean instance, but you might not if the EJB container has passivated the actual bean instance, but reactivation should result in an instance with equivalent state. For singleton session bean in EJB 3.1, you are guaranteed the singleton bean instance will be invoked.
It's undefined whether you get the same proxy instance. For SLSB and singleton beans, injection or lookup could return a single proxy that delegates to the actual bean instance as mentioned above. For SFSB, the proxy is basically required to be a separate instance per injection or lookup since the proxy must store some state with the identity so it can invoke the specific actual bean instance.
It's undefined what the container does, but injection is typically implemented by containers using Context.lookup followed by Field.set (or Method.invoke for setter method injection). Regardless, the instance handling is as described above.

User context for #Startup EJB on websphere

Where do I set the user context Websphere uses when it calls a #Startup EJB?
I have a Java EE application with a startup EJB, and I know that it sets a user when calling the EJB, since the call fails due to missing roles. However, I couldn't find where to set the user.
The EJB spec states that session bean #PostConstruct methods are called in an unspecified security context, and WebSphere does not document a specific security context or allow it to be configured. In practice, singleton session bean #PostConstruct will typically be called with an unauthorized user as the security context. If setting a specific security context is important, then you could open a WebSphere RFE, but I would recommend finding another solution to avoid a vendor-specific solution.

EJB Visibility from Managed Beans

I have Enterprise Java Bean which is Statefull and it holds current user instance
I want to get this instance from few different baking beans (SessionScoped managed beans) but when Im using:
#EJB
UserSessionBean usb;
(...)
usb.getUser();
I am getting null pointer exceptions in the ManagedBean (seems that every managedbean is getting new instance of UserSessionBean EJB. Why is that? I thought one instance of that bean would be shared among all Beans for that session...
if UserSessionBean is the implementation class or interface?
I think you should use the interface to create an instance of your EJB.
also take a look at #statefull and #singlton annotations.

Flex remote object performance

Our flex client needs to invoke server side EJB3 session bean. For each module we have seperate session bean.
Whether it is best to have separate flex end point (remote object) to each session bean to invoke methods or to create a single facade session bean as an endpoint and invoke other session bean methods through this facade bean.
Whether creating multiple flex end points increases the performance or its an expensive process?
Creating a RemoteObject is not an expensive process but having many of them won't really increase client-side performance either. Typically all of your RemoteObjects will reference a shared ChannelSet which basically represents the connection to the server endpoint. I would recommend using one RemoteObject for each session bean you have. You can relate a RemoteObject to a session bean by specifying the "destination" property on the RemoteObject and ensuring that your server side implementation of the FlexFactory interface resolves the destination name to the appropriate session bean.

Is it safe to inject an EJB into a servlet as an instance variable?

We all know that in the web tier there is the possibility that only a single instance of a given Servlet exists which services multiple requests. This can lead to threading issues in instance variables.
My question is, is it safe to inject an EJB using the #EJB annotation into a servlet as an instance variable?
My initial instinct would be no, under the assumption that the same instance of the EJB would service multiple requests at the same time. It would seem that this would also be the instinct of a number of other programmers: Don't inject to servlets
However have I jumped to the wrong conclusion. Clearly what is injected into the servlet is a proxy, under the hood does the container actually service each request with a different instance and maintain thread safety? As this forum would suggest: Do inject to servlets
There seems to be a lot of conflicting opinions. WHICH IS CORRECT???
It is safe to inject an EJB in a Servlet as a Servlet instance variable, as long as the EJB is Stateless. You MUST NEVER inject a Stateful Bean in a Servlet.
You must implement your EJB stateless in that it doesn't hold any instance variable which itself holds a stateful value (like Persistence Context). If you need to use the persistence context, then you must get an instance of it IN the methods of the EJB. You can do that by having a PersistenceContextFactory as a EJB instance Variable and then you get an instance of the entity manager from the Factory in the method of the EJB.
The PersistenceContextFactory is thread-safe, thus it can be injected in an instance variable.
As long as you comply to the above mentioned rules, it should be thread-safe to inject a Stateless Bean in a Servlet
Your reference "Don't inject to servlets" mentions nothing about ejbs or #ejb annotation. It talks about not thread safe objects such as PersistenceContext.
Per EJB spec you can access ejbs from variety of remote clients including servlets (EJB 3.0 Specification (JSR-220) - Section 3.1). Injecting ejb using #EJB annotation is a method of obtaining EJB interface via dependency injection (section 3.4.1) which is alternative to looking up ejb objects in the JNDI namespace. So there is nothing special about #EJB annotation with respect to EJBs obtained.
So, based on EJB 3.0 Spec, it's a standard practice to obtain ejbs from servlets using #EJB annotation.
It's a mixed bag.
Stateless session beans may be injected and are safe. This is because even if a single instance of a stub is used, access to the methods will be serialized by the container.
I think what inferreddesign says is not true. It doesn't matter if the stateless session bean uses a persistence context. Only one caller will ever access a single bean instance at the same time, so even though the persistence context is not thread safe, the EJB guards against multiple access to it. Think of it as if every session bean method has the synchronized keyword applied to it.
The main problem with injecting an EJB in a Servlet I think is performance. The single stub instance will become a major area of contention when multiple requests are queuing up while waiting for a session bean method to be executed for them.
I think the simple answer is that you aren't guaranteed that it is safe.
The reason for this is that there is nothing explicit in the EJB specification that says EJB home interfaces have to be thread safe. The spec outlines the behaviour of the server side part only. What you will probably find is that the client skeletons are actually thread safe but you would need to look at how they are implemented by the library you are using. The annotation part will just expand into a service locator so that doesn't buy you anything.

Resources