Enterprise JavaBeans - an infrastructure for component-based distributed applications

• architecture for creating server-side, scalable, transactional, multi-user, secure, enterprise-level applications
• supports client-server or fully distributed n-tier application architectures
• the paradigm is to construct the application from prefabricated components customized for a particular environment
• by providing a general-purpose infrastructure, the application developer may concentrate on programming only the business logic, and no longer needs to write code that handles transactional behavior, security, and effective resource management at the system level
• since the contracts among objects of EJB architecture are precisely specified by the EJB specification, the beans implementing the business logic are platform-independent and can be moved to a different, more scalable platform if needed without modifications ("Write Once, Run Anywhere")