Java Transaction API

Transaction management is an important aspect in enterprise applications. With enterprise applications getting more and more complex and accessing disparate information resources, it is imperative to control the ways different systems are accessed in a business procedure executed by an enterprise application.

The Java Transaction API abstracts the transaction interactions in an application irrespective of the transaction manager used for transaction handling. The Java Transaction API defines standard interfaces for interactions among application components, transaction managers, and resource managers.

The Java Transaction API consists of the following three components:

• Client level interface The client level interface is used by application components to programmatically demarcate transactions. Hence, application components have the programmatic ability to initiate, commit, or roll back transactions using the client level interface.

• Transaction manager interface For application components that delegate transaction management responsibilities to the container, the transaction manager interface comes into play. Application component containers use the transaction manager interface to demarcate and manage transactions on behalf of the application component. Application servers can interact with different transaction managers in a consistent and standard way using the transaction manager interface.

• Java mapping of the X/Open XA protocol intended for a resource manager The interaction between the transaction manager and the resource manager is defined in terms of a Java mapping of the industry-standard XA interface. These Java mappings of the X/Open XA protocol form part of the JTA API specification.