The results of using J2EE in practice are often disappointing—apps are often slow, unduly complex, and take too long to develop. The author believes that the problem lies not in J2EE itself, but that it is often used badly. Many J2EE publications advocate approaches that, while fine in theory, often fail in reality, or deliver no real business value. In this tutorial the author offers a real-world, how-to guide so that you can make J2EE work in practice, drawing on his experience of designing successful high-volume J2EE apps and salvaging failing projects, as well as intimate knowledge of the J2EE specifications. The text will help you to solve common problems with J2EE and avoid the expensive mistakes often made in J2EE projects. The author will guide you through the complexity of the J2EE services and APIs to enable you to build the simplest possible solution, on time and on budget. He takes a practical, pragmatic approach, questioning J2EE orthodoxy where it has failed to deliver results in practice and instead suggesting effective, proven approaches. What you will learn from this tutorial:

• When to use a distributed architecture
• When and how to use EJB
• How to develop an efficient data access strategy
• How to design a clean and maintainable web interface
• How to design J2EE apps for performance

About the Author Rod Johnson is an enterprise Java architect specializing in scalable web apps. Rod spent two years designing and delivering a J2EE solution for FT.com, Europe’s largest business portal. He completed an arts degree majoring in music and computer science at the University of Sydney. He obtained a Ph.D. in musicology before returning to software development. With a background in C and C++, Rod has worked with both Java and J2EE since their release. He is currently a member of JSR 154 Expert Group defining the Servlet 2.4 specification. Rod Johnson has contributed several chapters to other Wrox publications including Professional Java Server Programming (J2EE and J2EE 1.3 versions) and Professional Java Server Pages (2nd version), and is a reviewer for Wrox Press. He has presented at international conferences including Times Java, Mumbai (2001), and his writing has been featured on java.oracle.com.