What is EJB alternative in Spring Framework

Question

I am trying to learn Spring Framework, before that I used to create application with EJBs

[Web services]->[Business Layer]->[DAO Layer] | [Database]

in following way

1. WebServices: Restful API using Jersey with url mappings, that support both JSON and XML format( news/list.json, news/list.xml). Once a request is received by an endpoint(url-mapped-method) it is forwarded to a relevant EJB through lookup(remote, local). EJB process every thing, apply business rules and return result as DTO(Data transfer object),Service then transform the result into required format (JSON, XML)

2. Business Layer: Business Layer (Facade) implemented in EJB with remote and local interfaces, these EJBs can call other EJBs. WebService layer(and/or Timer service and MDBs) can also call any of the EJBs). For timer service related functionality I used EJB Timer Service and for Messages used Message Drive Bean and interceptor for logging and auditing.

3. DAO Layer: All the Database related functions(add,edit, delete, search) JPA/Hibernate using EntityManager are written here (Entity beans and HQL). Seamless Transaction support, each EJB's method (lookup-based) call is treated as a separate transaction and calling methods of DAO layer are part of same transaction(provided that no extra configuration is provided). multiple operations are carried out in a single transaction If one db operation fails all others are roll backed automatically. Each Table is mapped as an entity class with relations etc.

I have worked on Spring MVC but could not map/understand correctly for above architecture I know bit about AOP and that I think is a perfect replacement for Interceptors (or at least it work for me)

Now my question is how all these could be replaced in Spring framework?

1. Jersey (RestAPi) alternative in Spring>
2. EJB alternative in Spring (as EJB supports remoting, each lookup call to a method is treated as a transaction, calls to EJB's method could be intercepted and it comes with state-full and stateless flavors)?
3. Timer Service alternative in Spring?
4. Message Drive Bean alternative in Spring?
5. Interceptor alternative is AOP in Spring (As per my experience and that serve my purpose)
6. JPA(entity manager) alternative in spring?

Answer 1

• Jersey (RestAPi) alternative in Spring ⇨ it's rest api (in spring with @Path annotation) or spring mvc if you want to use controllers (@Controller annotation)!
• EJB alternative in Spring ⇨ Spring doesn't give statefull bean out of a box but you can use @Service annotation (or @Repository for DAO) but you have to handle transactions manually (with annotations for example)
• Message Drive Bean alternative ⇨ There is no equivalent out of the box in Spring, you could use injection and librairies of Spring to get it working (package org.springframework.jms should contains what you need)!
• JPA(entity manager) alternative is not ejb ⇨ so it can be used in Spring.

Spring is a lighweight library so you can do all you do with EJB but it's more configurable so you will have more work to do the same that EJB do. But this configuration brings you some advantages: you have the hand on it!

Answer 2

This explains Spring and Java EE (which is what you would have used EJBs in) side by side: http://www.slideshare.net/reza_rahman/java-ee-and-spring-sidebyside-34320697

1. Jersey offers Spring solutions too - see their website
2. Spring does support remote calls through, e.g., RMI; It also supports transactions; AFAIK, no explicit stateful/stateless Spring Components - it depends on how you use it
3. AFAIK nothing as awesome as TimerService, however, you could use Quartz
4. Spring offers MDPs (Message-Driven POJOs)
5. Spring does support JPA - see first link.

Another cool comparison slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/kelapure/java-e-evsspringshootout

Answer 3

Jersey (RestAPi) alternative in Spring?

Spring MVC does this perfectly fine, in my opinion. Just annotate your methods in your controller as the REST apis you want to use.

EJB alternative in Spring (as EJB supports remoting, each lookup call to a method is treated as a transaction, calls to EJB's method could be intercepted and it comes with state-full and stateless flavors)?

There is no full alternative. There are several techniques that implement this in parts: Spring remoting for remote calls, Spring transactions as transactions, Spring AOP interceptors for intercepting calls. However, for example XA transactions on remote calls are something you don't get as such in Spring. Spring however works fine with EJBs, so if you prefer them, you can still have them and use Spring in other parts of your software.

Timer Service alternative in Spring?

Spring task scheduling

Message Drive Bean alternative in Spring?

Message Listener Containers

Interceptor alternative is AOP in Spring (As per my experience and that serve my purpose)

There are several levels of interceptors in spring. There are handler interceptors in mvc, there are bean call interceptors like the SpringAutowiringInterceptor, and there are AOP-based interceptors that can be used in multiple layers.

JPA(entity manager) alternative in spring?

Spring has multiple of these as well. It's actually quite straightforward to just use JPA with Spring-Data, it's designed to integrate to JPA. There are Spring JDBC and other data layer alternatives though if Spring Data is not what you want.