Jakarta Connectors

Last updated

Jakarta Connectors (JCA; formerly known as Java EE Connector Architecture and J2EE Connector Architecture) are a set of Java programming language tools designed for connecting application servers and enterprise information systems (EIS) as a part of enterprise application integration (EAI). While JDBC is specifically used to establish connections between Java applications and databases, JCA provides a more versatile architecture for connecting to legacy systems.

Contents

JCA and Java EE

JCA was developed through the Java Community Process, with versions including JSR 16 (JCA 1.0), JSR 112 (JCA 1.5), and JSR 322 (JCA 1.6).

J2EE Version 1.3 requires application servers to support JCA Version 1.0.

J2EE Version 1.4 requires application servers to support JCA Version 1.5.

Java EE Version 6 requires application servers to support JCA version 1.6.

Contracts

The Jakarta Connector Architecture defines a standard for connecting a compliant application server to an EIS. It defines a standard set of system-level contracts between the Jakarta EE application server and a resource adapter. The system contracts defined by Version 1.0 of the J2EE Connector Architecture are described by the specification as follows:

Connection management
Connection management enables an application server to pool connections to the underlying EIS and enables application components to connect. This leads to a scalable application environment that can support a large number of clients.
Transaction management

Transaction management enables an application server to use a transaction manager to manage transactions across multiple resource managers. This contract also supports transactions that are managed internal to an EIS resource manager without the necessity of involving an external transaction manager.

Security management
Security management reduces security threats to the EIS and protects valuable information resources managed by the EIS.

JCA Version 1.5 adds system contracts to the specification as follows:

Life cycle management
Life cycle management enables an application server to manage the life cycle of a resource adapter from initiation through upgrades to obsolescence. This contract provides a mechanism for the application server to bootstrap a resource adapter instance during its deployment or application server startup, and to notify the resource adapter instance during its withdrawal or during an orderly shutdown.
Work management
Work management enables a resource adapter to do work (monitor network endpoints, invoke application components, and so on) by submitting work instances to an application server for execution. The application server dispatches threads to execute submitted work instances. This allows a resource adapter to avoid creating or managing threads directly, and allows an application server to efficiently pool threads and have more control over its runtime environment. The resource adapter can control the transaction context with which work instances are executed.
Transaction inflow management
Transaction inflow management enables a resource adapter to propagate an imported transaction to an application server. This contract also allows a resource adapter to transmit transaction completion and crash recovery calls initiated by an EIS, and ensures that the Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability (ACID) properties of the imported transaction are preserved.
Message inflow management
Message inflow management enables a resource adapter to asynchronously deliver messages to message endpoints residing in the application server, independent of the specific messaging style, messaging semantics and messaging infrastructure used to deliver messages. This contract also serves as the standard message provider pluggability contract that allows a wide range of message providers (Java Message Service (JMS), Java API for XML Messaging (JAXM), and so on) to be plugged into any Java EE compatible application server with a resource adapter.

EIS Integration

JCA adapters can be built to integrate with various Enterprise Information System such as Siebel Systems, SAP AG, Great Plains Systems, Oracle Applications, etc. Siebel provides API to integrate with various platforms like Java, C++, .NET, Visual Basic, etc. For Java it provides an interface called 'Java Data Bean' (JDB). The Siebel adapter provides data access via the JDB API. Great Plains Systems provides an interface called eConnect to integrate with other platforms. SAP provides an interface for Java called SAP Java Connector (SAP JCo).

Related Research Articles

Jakarta Enterprise Beans is one of several Java APIs for modular construction of enterprise software. EJB is a server-side software component that encapsulates business logic of an application. An EJB web container provides a runtime environment for web related software components, including computer security, Java servlet lifecycle management, transaction processing, and other web services. The EJB specification is a subset of the Java EE specification.

The Jakarta Transactions, one of the Jakarta EE APIs, enables distributed transactions to be done across multiple X/Open XA resources in a Java environment. JTA was a specification developed under the Java Community Process as JSR 907. JTA provides for:

The Jakarta Messaging API is a Java application programming interface (API) for message-oriented middleware. It provides generic messaging models, able to handle the producer–consumer problem, that can be used to facilitate the sending and receiving of messages between software systems. Jakarta Messaging is a part of Jakarta EE and was originally defined by a specification developed at Sun Microsystems before being guided by the Java Community Process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jakarta EE</span> Set of specifications extending Java SE

Jakarta EE, formerly Java Platform, Enterprise Edition and Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), is a set of specifications, extending Java SE with specifications for enterprise features such as distributed computing and web services. Jakarta EE applications are run on reference runtimes, which can be microservices or application servers, which handle transactions, security, scalability, concurrency and management of the components they are deploying.

An application server is a server that hosts applications or software that delivers a business application through a communication protocol. For a typical web application, the application server sits behind the web servers.

A web container is the component of a web server that interacts with Jakarta Servlets. A web container is responsible for managing the lifecycle of servlets, mapping a URL to a particular servlet and ensuring that the URL requester has the correct access-rights. A web container handles requests to servlets, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP) files, and other types of files that include server-side code. The Web container creates servlet instances, loads and unloads servlets, creates and manages request and response objects, and performs other servlet-management tasks. A web container implements the web component contract of the Jakarta EE architecture. This architecture specifies a runtime environment for additional web components, including security, concurrency, lifecycle management, transaction, deployment, and other services.

Java Management Extensions (JMX) is a Java technology that supplies tools for managing and monitoring applications, system objects, devices and service-oriented networks. Those resources are represented by objects called MBeans. In the API, classes can be dynamically loaded and instantiated. Managing and monitoring applications can be designed and developed using the Java Dynamic Management Kit.

Tuxedo is a middleware platform used to manage distributed transaction processing in distributed computing environments. Tuxedo is a transaction processing system or transaction-oriented middleware, or enterprise application server for a variety of systems and programming languages. Developed by AT&T in the 1980s, it became a software product of Oracle Corporation in 2008 when they acquired BEA Systems. Tuxedo is now part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware.

WebSphere Application Server (WAS) is a software product that performs the role of a web application server. More specifically, it is a software framework and middleware that hosts Java-based web applications. It is the flagship product within IBM's WebSphere software suite. It was initially created by Donald F. Ferguson, who later became CTO of Software for Dell. The first version was launched in 1998. This project was an offshoot from IBM HTTP Server team starting with the Domino Go web server.

Microsoft BizTalk Server is an inter-organizational middleware system (IOMS) that automates business processes through the use of adapters which are tailored to communicate with different software systems used in an enterprise. Created by Microsoft, it provides enterprise application integration, business process automation, business-to-business communication, message broker and business activity monitoring.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GlassFish</span> Application server project

GlassFish is an open-source Jakarta EE platform application server project started by Sun Microsystems, then sponsored by Oracle Corporation, and now living at the Eclipse Foundation and supported by OmniFish, Fujitsu and Payara. The supported version under Oracle was called Oracle GlassFish Server. GlassFish is free software and was initially dual-licensed under two free software licences: the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) and the GNU General Public License (GPL) with the Classpath exception. After having been transferred to Eclipse, GlassFish remained dual-licensed, but the CDDL license was replaced by the Eclipse Public License (EPL).

In software engineering, a WAR file is a file used to distribute a collection of JAR-files, JavaServer Pages, Java Servlets, Java classes, XML files, tag libraries, static web pages and other resources that together constitute a web application.

SAP NetWeaver Application Server or SAP Web Application Server is a component of SAP NetWeaver which works as a web application server for SAP products. All ABAP application servers including the message server represent the application layer of the multitier architecture of an ABAP-based SAP system. These application servers execute ABAP applications and communicate with the presentation components, the database, and also with each other, using the message server.

The Spring Framework is an application framework and inversion of control container for the Java platform. The framework's core features can be used by any Java application, but there are extensions for building web applications on top of the Java EE platform. The framework does not impose any specific programming model.. The framework has become popular in the Java community as an addition to the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) model. The Spring Framework is free and open source software.

SAP Business Connector is a re-branded version/restricted licence version of webMethods Integration Server provided by SAP as a middleware solution for their R/3 product. It was developed jointly by webMethods and SAP in a partnership which lasted from March 1999 to March 2002. webMethods contributed the Integration Server platform, while SAP contributed the components for RFC/tRFC, BAPI and IDoc communication and processing. These SAP components were bundled into an add-on package that can be installed on top of the core Integration Server.

Java Composite Application Platform Suite (Java CAPS) is a standards-based enterprise service bus software suite from Oracle Corporation. The suite has several components that help to integrate existing applications and deliver new business services in a service-oriented architecture environment. It is a Java EE compliant platform and provides application-to-application integration, business-to-business integration, business process management along with integrated human workflow, an Enterprise Information Portal, extract transform and load (ETL), business activity monitoring and composite application development.

IBM WebSphere Optimized Local Adapters (OLA or WOLA) is a functional component of IBM's WebSphere Application Server for z/OS that provides an efficient cross-memory mechanism for calls both inbound to WAS z/OS and outbound from z/OS. Because it avoids the overhead of other communication mechanisms, it is capable of high volume exchange of messages. WOLA is an extension to the existing cross-memory exchange mechanism of WAS z/OS, with WOLA providing an external interface so z/OS address spaces outside the WAS z/OS server may participate in cross-memory exchanges. WOLA supports connectivity between a WAS z/OS server and one or more of the following: CICS, IMS, Batch, UNIX Systems Services and ALCS. WOLA was first made available in WAS z/OS Version 7, Fixpack 4 (7.0.0.4). Functional enhancements have appeared in subsequent fixpacks as documented in this article.

The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform is a subscription-based/open-source Java EE-based application server runtime platform used for building, deploying, and hosting highly-transactional Java applications and services developed and maintained by Red Hat. The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform is part of Red Hat's Enterprise Middleware portfolio of software. Because it is Java-based, the JBoss application server operates across platforms; it is usable on any operating system that supports Java. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform was originally called JBoss and was developed by the eponymous company JBoss, acquired by Red Hat in 2006.

Jakarta Management is a Java specification request (JSR-77) for standardization of Jakarta EE server management. Jakarta Management abstracts the manageable parts of the Jakarta EE architecture and defines an interface for accessing management information. This helps system administrators integrate Jakarta EE servers into a system management environment and also helps application developers create their own management tools from scratch.

JEUS is a Korean Web application server which is developed by TmaxSoft. JEUS provides the web application server component of TmaxSoft's middleware-tier framework solution. It has been widely adopted in Korea where it holds the largest (42.1%) share of the market.