JBoss at Work: A Practical Guide [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

The subtitle for this book is "A Practical Guide." That subtitle is perfect. This is one of the most immediately useful and practical books I've read in a long time. I began using JBoss at the same time I started reading this book and I appreciated that the book started out with the relatively simple task of getting JBoss installed. However, while the book starts at an introductory level it doesn't stay there. It progresses through more advanced topics such as JMS, JavaMail, JAAS, and Web Services.

The writing is clear and enjoyable throughout. An extended example of a car dealer carries forward throughout the book. This helps the concepts fit together and build upon one another. JBoss at Work is highly informative and, as its subtitle promises, a practical guide. I highly recommend it.

J2EE started out as a specification that left the implementation to each container vendor. It's readily apparent that two of the earliest vendors, WebSphere and WebLogic, implemented J2EE in vastly different ways. As a result, early books on J2EE or Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) frequently either avoided or severely limited the discussion of a specific server because the details were better referenced from server vendors' manuals. JBoss changed that picture. It is an open source Java-based application server which is freely downloadable, plus it is a certified J2EE server.

"JBoss at Work: A Practical Guide", aims to provide practical examples for using JBoss by showing a practical and complete example of a web application running on JBoss. The "JAW Motors" application supports a fictitious automobile dealership. Each chapter progressively adds a new J2EE technology that solves a specific business problem. Viewing cars on a website involves JSP pages and some form of persistence (JDBC or Hibernate). Performing a credit check sends a JMS message and an email response using JavaMail. Purchasing a car requires the transactional support of Stateless Session Beans. Sharing data from the JAW Motors inventory with other dealerships involves setting up Web Services, and so on. The authors' hope is that a coherent business application in action will hopefully give you a clearer idea of how the various layers interact, as opposed to a series of disjointed "Hello World" examples exercising each layer in isolation, and I think their concept worked out very well.

The security portion of the book's example web application makes use of JAAS (Java Authentication & Authorization Service), which enables an application to protect its resources by restricting access to only users with proper credentials and permissions. It is a standard extension in J2SE 1.4, but is not yet widely understood. Thus, one of the appendices is devoted to a tutorial on its use, which I found very helpful.

The authors assume that you're experienced in programming with the Java language and are familiar with Open Source tools such as Ant and XDoclet. They show how to download and install them, and they also provide Ant scripts for compiling and deploying the "JAW Motors" application. If you're new to J2EE, this book serves as a gentle introduction, but don't mistake it for a true J2EE reference manual. I found this book immensely helpful and clear and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get to work quickly using JBoss as an application server. The table of contents is as follows:

1. GETTING STARTED WITH JBOSS

Why "JBoss at Work"?; Why JBoss?; The Example: JAW Motors; The Tools; Installing JBoss; Deploying Applications to JBoss; Looking Ahead;

2. WEB APPLICATIONS

The Servlet Container; Three-Tier Applications; Exploring the Presentation Tier; Building the View Cars Page; Adding a Model and Controller; Looking Ahead;

3. BUILDING AND DEPLOYING AN EAR

WARs Versus EARs; Application.xml; Common JAR; Deploying the EAR; Adding a DAO; Using XDoclet; Looking Ahead;

4. DATABASES AND JBOSS

Persistence Options; JDBC; JNDI; JNDI References in web.xml; JBoss DataSource Descriptors; JDBC Driver JARs; Database Checklist; Accessing the Database Using Ant; Creating JDBCCarDAO; Looking Ahead;

5. HIBERNATE AND JBOSS

The Pros and Cons of ORMs; Hibernate Mapping Files; Hibernate MBean Service Descriptor; Creating a HAR; Adding the HAR to the EAR; Creating a JNDI lookup; Hibernate Checklist; HibernateCarDAO; Adding a Car; Editing a Car; Deleting a Car; Looking Ahead;

6. STATELESS SESSION BEANS

Issues with EJBs; Should I Use EJB or Not?; Business Tier; Enterprise JavaBeans; Our Example; Iteration 1-Introduce a Session Bean; Calling the Session Bean from the Controller Servlet; EJB-Based JNDI References in Web-Based Deployment; Descriptors; Session Bean Types; Session Beans; Remote Versus Local EJB Calls; Local and Remote Interfaces; Home Interfaces; Reviewing Iteration 1; Testing Iteration 1; Iteration 2-Move Business Logic Out of the Controller; Reviewing Iteration 2; Testing Iteration 2; Iteration 3-Buy a Car; The AccountingDTO; Developing the HibernateAccountingDAO; Adding buyCar( ) to the InventoryFacadeBean; Reviewing Iteration 3; Testing Iteration 3; Final Thoughts on Session Beans; Looking Ahead;

7. JAVA MESSAGE SERVICE (JMS) AND MESSAGE-DRIVEN BEANS

Sending Messages with JMS; Upgrade the Site: Running a Credit Check; JMS Architecture Overview; JMS Messaging Models; Creating a Message; Sending the Message; Core JMS API; Sending a JMS Message; JMS-Based JNDI References in Web-Based Deployment; Descriptors; Deploying JMS Destinations on JBoss; JMS Checklist; Message-Driven Beans (MDBs); MDB Checklist; Testing the Credit Check; Looking Ahead;

8. JAVAMAIL

Running a Credit Check; Sending Email Messages with JavaMail; Upgrading the MDB to Send an Email Message; Sending an Email Message; JavaMail-Based JNDI References in EJB Deployment; Descriptors; Automating JavaMail-Based JNDI References with XDoclet; Deploying JavaMail on JBoss; JavaMail Checklist; Testing the Credit Check Notification Email; Looking Ahead;

9. SECURITY

J2EE Security; Web-Based Security; Restricting Access with web.xml; JAAS; Deploying a JAAS-Based Security Realm on JBoss; Testing Secure JSPs; Protecting the Administrative Actions; Web Security Checklist; Integrating Web Tier and EJB Tier Security; EJB Security; EJB Security Checklist; Looking Ahead;

10. WEB SERVICES

Web Services Architecture; JBoss 4.x and Web Services; J2EE 1.4 and Web Services; Implementing J2EE 1.4 Web Services; Service Endpoint Interface (SEI); Modifying ejb-jar.xml; webservices.xml; JAX-RPC Mapping File; WSDL File; Set the Web Service URL; Modifying the InventoryFacadeBean EJB; Web Services Deployment; Automating Web Services Deployment; J2EE Web Services Checklist; Testing Web Services Deployment; Web Services Client; Implementing a Web Service Client; Web Service Client Checklist; Testing the Web Service Client; Final Thoughts on J2EE 1.4 Web Services; Conclusion;

I was looking for a guide for JBoss application server from a beginer's point of view (I have been working with Weblogic for several years but not JBoss) and bought this book since it was rated so high. However, after I finished reading the book, I felt very disappointed since this book talks so little for JBoss! Instead, it puts most of the content on J2EE programming, how to develop 3-tier application, and MVC framework etc. I am not buying this book to learn J2EE techniques!!! What I want to know is how JBoss is managing all its services, how to config different settings, what logging mechanisms are provided (general, JDBC, http, etc.), or how to tune the performance of a JBoss server. Unfortunately, thost topics are either just mentioned slightly (like logging in appendix B), or not there at all.

In summary, if you are a beginner for J2EE and want to start your development with JBoss, this book might be good for you. Don't expect to find more information of JBoss from it! I am a fan of O'Reilly books, but this one is not one of them!