Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) are a container-based component architecture that allow you to easily create secure, scalable and transactional enterprise applications. Developed as session beans, entity beans, or message-driven beans, EJBs are the critical business objects in any J2EE application. Professional EJB shows how to develop and deploy EJB applications using both the 1.1 and the new 2.0 specification. The addition of container-provided services, such as container-managed persistence, and security and transaction management, are covered in detail. As well as implementation details, the book also provides a number of strategies and patterns that can be applied when designing your EJB applications. Subsequently, it also suggests steps for taking existing EJBs and improving their performance. Finally, the book recognizes that one of the most difficult areas of EJB development is the deployment process. Thus it demonstrates how to deploy your EJB applications to some of the leading EJB containers including BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere and Sybase EAServer. .