J2EE.5.1 Overview

The application assembler and deployer should be able to customize an application's business logic without accessing the application's source code.

In addition, ISVs typically develop applications that are, to a large degree, independent from the operational environment in which the application will be deployed. Most applications must access resources and external information. The key issue is how applications can locate the external information without knowledge of how the external information is named and organized in the target operational environment.

This specification defines naming requirements for the J2EE platform that address both of the above issues.

This chapter is organized as follows .

• Section J2EE.5.2 defines the interfaces that specify and access the application component's naming environment. The section illustrates the use of the application component's naming environment for generic customization of the application component's business logic.

• SectionJ2EE.5.3 defines the interfaces for obtaining the home interface of an enterprise bean using an EJB reference. An EJB reference is a special entry in the application component's environment.

• Section J2EE.5.4 defines the interfaces for obtaining a resource factory using a resource factory reference. A resource factory reference is a special entry in the application component's environment.

Only J2EE application clients , enterprise beans, and web components are required to have access to a JNDI naming environment. Only the containers for these application component types must provide the naming environment support described here.

The deployment descriptor entries described here are present in identical form in the deployment descriptor DTDs for each of these application component types. See the corresponding specification of each application component type for the details.