jakarta ee - A summary of all Java EE specifications

Question

I'm looking for a clear description of all Java EE technologies stack.

I think there are a lot of people like me who searched in many sites/tutorials and didn't find a precise list of which are the technologies used in Java EE and what are they good for.

I hope someone will clarify simple and nicely to be good for all the community.

Answer 1

^{Important: While this answer is still valid, you may also want to check the following:
? List of technologies of Java EE 8;
? List of technologies of Jakarta EE 8;
? List of technologies of Jakarta EE 9.}

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The Java EE 7 technologies

Below you will find a list of specifications for the Java EE 7 technologies. For more details, check the JSR pages:

• Java EE Platform

  • JSR 342: Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 7 (Java EE 7)

• Web Application Technologies

  • JSR 356: Java API for WebSocket
  • JSR 353: Java API for JSON Processing
  • JSR 340: Java Servlet 3.1
  • JSR 344: JavaServer Faces 2.2
  • JSR 341: Expression Language 3.0
  • JSR 245: JavaServer Pages 2.3
  • JSR 52: Standard Tag Library for JavaServer Pages (JSTL) 1.2

• Enterprise Application Technologies

  • JSR 352: Batch Applications for the Java Platform
  • JSR 236: Concurrency Utilities for Java EE 1.0
  • JSR 346: Contexts and Dependency Injection for Java 1.1
  • JSR 330: Dependency Injection for Java 1.0
  • JSR 349: Bean Validation 1.1
  • JSR 345: Enterprise JavaBeans 3.2
  • JSR 318: Interceptors 1.2
  • JSR 322: Java EE Connector Architecture 1.7
  • JSR 338: Java Persistence 2.1
  • JSR 250: Common Annotations for the Java Platform 1.2
  • JSR 343: Java Message Service API 2.0
  • JSR 907: Java Transaction API (JTA) 1.2
  • JSR 919: JavaMail 1.5

• Web Services Technologies

  • JSR 339: Java API for RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS) 2.0
  • JSR 109: Implementing Enterprise Web Services 1.3
  • JSR 224: Java API for XML-Based Web Services (JAX-WS) 2.2
  • JSR 181: Web Services Metadata for the Java Platform
  • JSR 101: Java API for XML-Based RPC (JAX-RPC) 1.1
  • JSR 67: Java APIs for XML Messaging 1.3
  • JSR 93: Java API for XML Registries (JAXR) 1.0

• Management and Security Technologies

  • JSR 196: Java Authentication Service Provider Interface for Containers 1.1
  • JSR 115: Java Authorization Contract for Containers 1.5
  • JSR 88: Java EE Application Deployment 1.2 (Optional)
  • JSR 77: J2EE Management 1.1
  • JSR 45: Debugging Support for Other Languages 1.0

• Java EE-related Specs in Java SE

  • JSR 222: Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) 2.2
  • JSR 206: Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) 1.3
  • JSR 221: Java Database Connectivity 4.0
  • JSR 3: Java Management Extensions (JMX) 2.0
  • JSR 925: JavaBeans Activation Framework (JAF) 1.1
  • JSR 173: Streaming API for XML (StAX) 1.0

For more details, refer to this page.

The Java EE stack

As mentioned by Arun Gupta in his book entitled Java EE 7 Essentials, the different components work together to provide an integrated stack, as shown below:

So, we have the following:

• Different components can be logically divided into three tiers: backend tier, middle tier, and web tier. This is only a logical representation, and the components can be restricted to a different tier based upon the application's requirements.

• JPA and JMS provide the basic services such as database access and messaging. JCA allows connection to legacy systems. Batch is used for performing noninteractive, bulk-oriented tasks.

• Managed Beans and EJB provide a simplified programming model using POJOs to use the basic services.

• CDI, Interceptors, and Common Annotations provide concepts that are applicable to a wide variety of components, such as type-safe dependency injection, addressing cross-cutting concerns using interceptors, and a common set of annotations. Concurrency Utilities can be used to run tasks in a managed thread. JTA enables Transactional Interceptors that can be applied to any POJO.

• CDI Extensions allow you to extend the platform beyond its existing capabilities in a standard way.

• Web Services using JAX-RS and JAX-WS, JSF, JSP, and EL define the programming model for web applications. Web Fragments allow automatic registration of third-party web frameworks in a very natural way. JSON provides a way to parse and generate JSON structures in the web tier. WebSocket allows the setup of a bidirectional, full-duplex communication channel over a single TCP connection.

• Bean Validation provides a standard means to declare constraints and validate them across different technologies.

A briefing of each technology

To learn more about the main technologies listed above, check the Java EE 7 tutorial. And a good overview of the main technologies can be found in this page. Just quoting it here:

Enterprise JavaBeans Technology

An Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) component, or enterprise bean, is a body of code that has fields and methods to implement modules of business logic. You can think of an enterprise bean as a building block that can be used alone or with other enterprise beans to execute business logic on the Java EE server.

Enterprise beans are either session beans or message-driven beans.

• A session bean represents a transient conversation with a client. When the client finishes executing, the session bean and its data are gone.

• A message-driven bean combines features of a session bean and a message listener, allowing a business component to receive messages asynchronously. Commonly, these are Java Message Service (JMS) messages.

In the Java EE 7 platform, new enterprise bean features include the following:

• Asynchronous local session beans in EJB Lite

• Nonpersistent timers in EJB Lite

The Java EE 7 platform requires Enterprise JavaBeans 3.2 and Interceptors 1.2. The Interceptors specification is part of the EJB specification.

Java Servlet Technology

Java Servlet technology lets you define HTTP-specific servlet classes. A servlet class extends the capabilities of servers that host applications accessed by way of a request-response programming model. Although servlets can respond to any type of request, they are commonly used to extend the applications hosted by web servers.

In the Java EE 7 platform, new Java Servlet technology features include the following:

• Nonblocking I/O

• HTTP protocol upgrade

The Java EE 7 platform requires Servlet 3.1.

JavaServer Faces Technology

JavaServer Faces technology is a user interface framework for building web applications. The main components of JavaServer Faces technology are as follows:

• A GUI component framework.

• A flexible model for rendering components in different kinds of HTML or different markup languages and technologies. A Renderer object generates the markup to render the component and converts the data stored in a model object to types that can be represented in a view.

• A standard RenderKit for generating HTML 4.01 markup.

The following features support the GUI components:

• Input validation

• Event handling

• Data conversion between model objects and components

• Managed model object creation

• Page navigation configuration

• Expression Language (EL)

All this functionality is available using standard Java APIs and XML-based configuration files.

In the Java EE 7 platform, new features of JavaServer Faces technology include the following:

• HTML5-friendly markup

• Faces Flows

• Resource library contracts

The J