A Detailed Comparison of the EJB and MTS models by Gopalan Suresh Raj
As the middleware war heats up between Microsoft, JavaSoft and the OMG, the providers of the three most popular distributed object technologies, let us look at a detailed comparison of the EJB and MTS models. Let us examine the differences between these models (with a concrete code example) from a programmer's standpoint and an architectural standpoint. At the end of this article, you will be able to better appreciate the merits and innards of each of these middleware component paradigms.

JavaBeans vs Enterprise JavaBeans
While both JavaBeans and Enterprise JavaBeans are software component models, the purpose for which they are designed is different. However, a common misconception is that an Enterprise JavaBean is an extension of plain vanilla JavaBeans with enterprise functionality. JavaBeans is a general-purpose component model whereas EJB, as the name suggests, is a middleware component model. We'll use these principles and the basic characteristics of software components to compare JavaBeans and Enterprise JavaBeans. (Published in the August 1999 issue of the Java Developers' Journal - JDJ Feature pp.22-30.)

The Factory Method (Creational) Design Pattern by Gopalan Suresh Raj
The Factory Design Pattern delegates the work of object creation to derived classes of the interface

The Mediator (Behavioral) Design Pattern by Gopalan Suresh Raj
The Mediator Design Pattern is used to design encapsulation for interaction among objects. It helps design a loose coupling by preventing objects from referring to each other directly. This allows to vary their interactions independantly.

Java/Remote Method Invocation (Java/RMI) by Gopalan Suresh Raj
Javasoft's Java/RMI ensures communication between distributed program-level Java objects residing in different address spaces by assuming a homogeneous Java Virtual Machine environment. It thus takes advantage of the Java Object Model whenever possible to support distributed objects in the Java environment.

Java/RMI - Under the Hood by Gopalan Suresh Raj
This article explains the innards and internals of Java/RMI

The Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) by Gopalan Suresh Raj
OMG's CORBA is a structural architecture designed to support heterogenous object systems. CORBA achieves communication between different distributed objects while still allowing encapsulation and hiding of the internal object structure from external objects through Indirection.

The COM Threading Models by Gopalan Suresh Raj
Explains the different threading models in COM

Component Object Model (COM) by Gopalan Suresh Raj
Microsoft tries to move reuseability from the source code realm into the binary realm. COM, OLE, ActiveX, DCOM, COM+ -you can call it anything- are all Microsoft's solutions to smooth out the edges and ensure that data sharing at the binary level, takes place in a consistent manner.

Jini Connection Technology by Gopalan Suresh Raj
Sun Microsystems' Jini Connection Technology enables the building and deployment of distributed systems that are organized as "federations of services." A federation is a set of services that can work together to perform a task. A service, the fundamental unit of a federation, is an entity that sits on the network ready to perform some kind of useful function. A service can be anything -- a hardware device, a piece of software or a communications channel. Once a service becomes part of a federation, it then can be used by all its client programs, other services, or users.

The Microsoft Message Queue Server (MSMQ) by Gopalan Suresh Raj
The Microsoft Message Queue Server (MSMQ) guarantees a simple, reliable and scalable means of asynchronous communication freeing up client apps to do other tasks without waiting for a response from the other end.It provides loosely-coupled and reliable network communications services based on a messaging queuing model. MSMQ makes it easy to integrate applications, implement a push-style business event delivery environment between applications, and build reliable applications that work over unreliable but cost-effective networks.

The Java Message Service (JMS) by Gopalan Suresh Raj
The Java Message Service (JMS) API combines Java technology with enterprise messaging. Enterprise messaging provides a reliable, flexible service for the asynchronous exchange of critical business data and events throughout an enterprise. The JMS API adds to this a common API and provider framework that enables the development of portable, message based applications in the Java programming language.

CORBA Component Model (CCM) by Gopalan Suresh Raj
CORBA Component Model (CCM) is a specification that focuses on the strength of CORBA as a server-side object model. It concentrates on issues that must be addressed to provide a complete Server side middleware component model. It can be described as a cross platform, cross language superset of EJB. The CCM gives developers the ability to quickly build web-enabled enterprise scale e-commerce applications while leveraging the industrial strength of CORBA. Tight integration with EJB leverages CORBA's cross-platform and multiple-language capabilities.

Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) by Gopalan Suresh Raj
Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) is built on DCOM and brings in mainframe-like transactional reliability to the PC world following a "write once, run many" strategy.Developers use MTS to deploy scalable server applications built from COM components, focusing on solving business problems instead of on the programming application infrastructure. MTS delivers the "plumbing" including transactions, scalability services, database connection management, and point-and-click administration providing developers with the easiest way to build and deploy scalable server applications for business and the Internet

Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) by Gopalan Suresh Raj
Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) provides a fully-scalable, distributed, and cross-platform architecture that makes the most of your business resources. Not only can these components run on any platform, but they are also completely portable across any vendor's EJB component execution system. The EJB environment automatically maps the component to the underlying vendor-specific execution services.

The Advanced CORBA Tutorial by Gopalan Suresh Raj
The Ultimate Resource to learn everything about CORBA and all its related technologies. This section contains a tutorial to CORBA covering topics like Stringification, Common Object Services (COS) like Naming, Event, Trader, Transaction, etc., and a lot more...

The COM+/DNA Tutorial by Gopalan Suresh Raj
The Ultimate Resource to learn everything about Microsoft COM+/DNA and all its related technologies. This section contains a tutorial to Advanced COM topics like DCOM, MTS, MSMQ, COM+ and a lot more...

The Advanced Java/J2EE Tutorial by Gopalan Suresh Raj
The Ultimate Resource to learn everything about the Java/J2EE platform and all its related technologies. This section contains a tutorial to Advanced Java topics like Enterprise JavaBeans, Jini, Java/RMI, JMS, JTS/JTA, JavaBeans, Network programming, Concurrency issues, and a lot more...

Authored the Chpters on EJB, CORBA and Jini	Enterprise Java Computing - Applications and Architecture Using this book, developers should be able to: (1) Integrate relational databases with RMI and servlets using JDBC (2) Develop sophisticated servlet-based middleware (3) Design multi-tier EJB applications (4) Write Jini services (5) Understand advanced issues regarding RMI and Java IDL development (6) Perform Java/legacy-system integration using JNI. This book empowers corporate developers to deliver mission-critical Java applications that can be deployed in the real world. With 'Enterprise Java Computing' the reader will master the critical building blocks that are necessary for developing robust client-server applications, without getting bogged down in the specifics of the Java language and its syntax.
	The Awesome Power of JavaBeans Authored Chapter 10: ActiveX to JavaBeans in the book "The Awesome Power of JavaBeans"

A Component Engineering Cornucopia by Gopalan Suresh Raj
The Ultimate Resource to learn everything about developing complete multi-tier Distributed Enterprise Applications using Java/J2EE, CORBA, COM+/DNA and all their related technologies.