A Bit of Background on J2EE

The Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) is a Sun Microsystems standard for developing multitier enterprise applications in Java. The J2EE standard defines standardized, modular components, a set of services for those components, and the handling of many details of application behavior automatically. Vendors such as Macromedia, IBM, BEA, AGI, and many others then develop their products to conform to those standards while often adding proprietary, value-added services to differentiate their products from their competitors'.

J2EE offers all the features of the basic Java 2 platform, such as portability, the JDBC API for database access, CORBA technology for interaction with existing enterprise resources, and a security model that protects data even in Internet applications. J2EE extends this with support for Enterprise Java Beans components, the Java Servlets API, Java Server Pages, the Java Messaging Service, XML technology, and more.