The number of considerations that are required in order to produce the solution to our problem can easily exceed the capabilities of a normally endowed application developer. However, today a number of software companies offer solutions to developers that provide ways of overcoming the problems inherent in a project such as the one that we have described, and a great deal of the thought and design required to handle the issues listed above have been collected into a number of industry standard platforms. This book discusses one of these platforms in great detail: Enterprise JavaBeans (or EJB for short). So wake up and smell the coffee, and let's get started.