The Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) architecture, part of J2EE, is a technology for developing and managing distributed applications in an enterprise environment. This book, like the first edition, is an advanced programming guide and reference to EJB, written by two architects of the EJB specifications. The second edition has been updated and expanded to cover the latest changes with the EJB 2.1 architecture, including support for Web services, message-driven beans, container-managed relationships, local client views, the EJB Query Language, and timer beans. This new edition details these latest features, complete with comprehensive application examples that show developers how to best put them to use.