To EJB ot Not?

Question

Hello,
We are getting started on a J2EE project which is quite similar to the
other J2EE projects prople have been doing ..a typical supply-chain
type.
We are trying to decide if we should go ahead with an Entity EJB or a
JDO.
The last I ever worked on Entity EJB was 2-3 years ago when the Entity
EJB technology was really immature (we did'nt have EJB relationships
then)
I was wondering if some one could state a practical and a honest
experince of using Entity EJBs in terms of production
stability/performance/transaction and so on.
Much appreciated,
N Rao

Answer 1

You shouldn't concern yourself with a right or wrong approach and
adhering to theory spewed from some book written by someone that's
never designed AND implemented a system. Rather seek the
technologically optimal solution. Application boundaries (or tiers)
exist, but they are flexible to a small degree in order to allow for
an optimal solution. Somewhere between a strictly designed system and
a system that hasn't been designed at all lies a well-designed and
well-implemented system that runs optimally. Having said all that...
I'm currently working on a JDO project. Unfortunately, I arrived too
late in the game to have any influence or input into the design
process and while it's working, I feel the solution isn't optimal for
a few reasons, but most importantly because there are
enterprise-shareable business objects in the application that cannot
be shared easily given the current architecture. Is that the JDO's
problem? Not at all. The problem is that someone has a hard-on for JDO
rather than a vision for an optimal solution for the customer that, at
least initially, takes into account all possible solutions.
I would not hesitate to use EJBs or 2.0 Entity EJBs. A couple of years
ago this technology was a virgin as opposed to what it is now - a real
slut. It's been around the block a few times and, unlike human sluts,
has benefited extremely well from its promiscuity. However, just
because you're using Entity EJBs doesn't mean all your data should be
modeled as such. As usual, you must temper theory with practical
reasoning. I still only use Entity EJBs primarily to model
transactional business data to which multiple clients need
simultaneous access. For instance, inventory data is an ideal
candidate as it meets the criteria - transactional business data to
which multiple clients require simultaneous access. There are other
uses of entity beans and read-only entity beans, but I've said too
much already. Time to post.
Jason