Dynamically loading new session beans.

Question

We have an abstract class, say A.
We then get the information for a new type of "A", call it
"a1003". We do rigorous in-house coding to implement the
methods. We finally get the a1003's methods doing exactly what
we want. We now want to deploy a1003 along with all of the
container generated code to the server. We will put a1003 in the
list of "A" for drop-down access and interaction from the client.
Is this doable on an ad-hoc basis in a production environment?
How?
Another option for us is to design all the inputs to any "Type of
A" and store this in the database, but this may or may not be
actually achievable, while the first option is achievable, but,
right now involves a shutdown and restart of the app. The
current app is an extremely old app where the "a1003" is added to
an applet which then gets downloaded to the client's workstation.
We are reengineering to EJB and Oracle and aren't sure how to
handle this, quite critical, section of enterprise coding.
Galen Boyer

Answer 1

On Tue, 19 Nov 2002, [email protected] wrote:
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Galen Boyer wrote:
We have an abstract class, say A.
We then get the information for a new type of "A", call it
"a1003". We do rigorous in-house coding to implement the
methods. We finally get the a1003's methods doing exactly
what we want. We now want to deploy a1003 along with all of
the container generated code to the server. We will put a1003
in the list of "A" for drop-down access and interaction from
the client.
Is this doable on an ad-hoc basis in a production environment?Can you deploy a new EJB in a running, production server? Yes.Actually, we know this. My question was more, is it a
"productionized" strategy? Is it something people could
recommend as part of one's production process, not just a hot-fix
or upgrade, but an everyday, even all-day thing designed into the
process?
As for the drop-down box, you'll have to tell me more about how
you populate that list etc if you want more ideas on how to add
your new EJB to the list.The drop-down box would be list of all the classes that implement
"A". The user wants to interact with our implementation of a
particular class of "A", so he would look for it in the list and
choose it.
The client code only needs to call the methods and display the
results in the same interface for all other "A" type classes.
But, the "a1003" needs to have very particular implementations of
the abstract methods.
So, we wanted to understand if our process that exists today
would be viable in an EJB environment. Our current process is,
internally, we recieve the detailed information on the new "A".
The detailed information is even titled "a1003". We spend time
internally, implementing the abstract methods that are "modeled"
after "a1003"'s detailed description, iteratively testing this
"modeling process". When we deem it worthy of production, we
would like to make it available to the world.
The productionizing involves, having "a1003"s container code and
"a1003"'s business methods code deployed to the server. Then
putting the string "a1003" in the list of "A"'s (probably a
drop-down box). Then, without the application having come down,
the new "A" is available for interaction by the world.
Does this description make sense?
Thanks.
Galen Boyer