Testing conformance of EJB 3 enterprise application servers

S.M.J. Putter, de, S. Roubtsov, A. Serebrenik

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Abstract

Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) is a component technology used for enterprise application development. EJB is currently being implemented by such application servers as GlassFish, OpenEJB, JBoss, WebLogic and Apache Geronimo. Through the entire history EJB claimed its adherence to the "write once, run anywhere" philosophy of Java suggesting that an application developed for and deployed on one application server should be easily portable to a different application server. Therefore, one could have expected different application servers to adhere to the EJB specification. Adherence to this and related Java EE specifications is subject of the "Java EE 6 Full Profile" compatibility testing carried by Oracle. However, anecdotal evidence of discrepancies between the specification and certified implementations such as GlassFish, has been reported in the literature. In this paper we present an approach allowing one to go beyond the level of anecdotal knowledge and test requirements for EJB application servers with focus on portability. We apply the methodology developed to test how well two popular "Java EE 6 Full Profile"-compatible EJB application servers, GlassFish and JBoss, conform to the requirements in the EJB specification. The results are alarming: both application servers failed on a number of tests, violating the specification. Moreover, in GlassFish conformance to a requirement varies depending on whether a local or a remote application is used. Lack of conformance to the EJB specification compromises the portability of the EJB applications, deviates from the portability philosophy of Java, leads to unexpected behaviour, and hinders the learning process of novice EJB developers. Keywords: Enterprise JavaBeans, Specification Conformance, EJB Application Server.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication16th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2014, Lisbon, Portugal, April 27-30, 2014)
PublisherSciTePress Digital Library
Pages272-279
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014
Event16th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2014) - Lisbon, Portugal
Duration: 27 Apr 201430 Apr 2014
Conference number: 16
http://www.iceis.org/?y=2014

Conference

Conference16th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2014)
Abbreviated titleICEIS 2014
Country/TerritoryPortugal
CityLisbon
Period27/04/1430/04/14
Internet address

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