This book is a Developer’s Guide, covering the ins and outs of developing Java EE 5 applications deployed to the standards-compliant, high performance GlassFish application server. This book is aimed at Java developers wishing to become proficient with Java EE 5, who are expected to have some experience with Java and to have developed and deployed applications in the past, but need no previous knowledge of Java EE or J2EE. It teaches the reader how to use GlassFish to develop and deploy applications.
Java EE 5 Development using GlassFish Application Server
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David Heffelfinger
David Heffelfinger is the Chief Technology Officer of Ensode Technology, LLC, a software consulting firm based in the greater Washington DC area. He has been architecting, designing and developing software professionally since 1995, he has been using Java as his primary programming language since 1996. He has worked on many large scale projects for several clients including the US Department of Homeland Security, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the US Department of Defense. He has a Masters degree in Software Engineering from Southern Methodist University. David is editor in chief of Ensode.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Book Review: Java EE 5 Development using GlassFish Application Server
February 10, 2008
By John Yeary
Format:Paperback
My overall opinion of the book is good. The book is very well written, and the code examples in the book work. Working code examples are the number one criteria for me. The code examples start with some examples in Chapter 2 that are used throughout the remainder of the book. This provides a coherent flow through the book. You may also download the code examples from the Packt Publishing support site.
I would recommend it as a book to have on your development bookshelf.
The book claims to be the complete guide to installing and configuring GlassFish. I would not give it that much credit. There is room for more extensive books on GlassFish. There are a number of topics that are very general and have nothing to do with the actual configuration of the server. A better book summary would be a guide to installing, configuring, and developing applications for the Glassfish server. It is really a Java EE 5 tutorial which features Glassfish.
As a book on GlassFish, it is very light in its coverage. As a tutorial for developers acquainting themselves with Java EE 5 and deployment on Glassfish it is very good. In my opinion it is targeted at developers familiar with J2EE who want to switch to JEE5, or junior developers trying to get a better comprehension of the EE environment. It is not for novice programmers.
Chapter 1
Getting Started with GlassFish
This chapter covers getting and installing GlassFish. It is very basic, but will get you up and running. It also includes how to set up your JNDI database connections. The majority of this information can be readily found on the GlassFish site on Java.net. There is a good example of how to set up multiple domains on GlassFish which is not easily gleaned from the site. There is a chart which shows how the --portbase command line option is used to set the ports on which GlassFish services connections. This provides the best explanation for this command line option and graphically depicts what the results are.
Chapter 2
Servlet Development and Deployment
This chapter is a very basic tutorial on servlet technology. It includes writing a simple servlets, web.xml files, and deployment file layout (war files). It includes some examples on html forms, request forwarding and response re-direction. There is nothing GlassFish specific and the files will just as easily deploy on Apache Tomcat unaltered. There is one item of note which is sun-web.xml related which has to do with how to change the context root. This is used if you do not want the default deployment context to match the name of the war file.
Chapter 3
JavaServer Pages
This chapter again has a basic tutorial on JSP technologies. There is a really good example of creating custom JSP tags and how to use them. Again, there is nothing that would prevent the war files from being deployed on Apache Tomcat. I wish that the author would have covered Unified Expression Language (EL) in more detail. It is more central to this technology on JEE5 platforms.
Chapter 4
Database Connectivity
This is the first chapter which covers a really important topic in the enhanced JEE5 database access functionality, new Java Persistence API (JPA), and its reference application server (GlassFish). The first example shows a servlet and how to connect to a database using the old form of JNDI lookup without resource injection. The next example shows the simplified version using resource injection of the DataSource. This removes all the plumbing of fetching our data source.
The next section covers Java Persistence API (JPA) and provides an in-depth tutorial. This is a key concept in JEE5. It introduces the Entity annotation on a POJO to convert it to a persistable object. The simple example that follows it demonstrates correctly how to to use JPA in a non-thread safe environment of a servlet using a UserTransaction. It also covers the persistence.xml file.
This chapter is a must for anyone who wants to learn JPA. The sections on entity relationships, and composite primary keys are done extremely well.
This chapter concludes on Java Persistence Query Language (JPQL) which is the follow-on from EJB QL.It is very light. I wish the author would have covered this very important topic in more detail. That being stated, the code sample is a perfect example.
The book is worth purchasing for this chapter alone.
Chapter 5
JSP Standard Tag Library
This chapter is a basic tutorial on the JSTL. I found a number of syntax mistakes, which were submitted back to Packt. The SQL JST Tag Library is covered. It was very simple. There is one note on No Suitable Driver SQL Exception which is often a hard thing to track down.There is nothing substantive about this chapter.
Chapter 6
JavaServer Faces
This is another JEE5 technology that needs more coverage in general. This chapter provides a good foundation on the reference JSF implementation. It is very well written. I am a big advocate of JSF and thoroughly examined this chapter.
The introductory examples are well done and give a good overview of the technology. The example Customer bean is the same bean that is used in JPA in chapter 4. This shows the consistency and flow between chapters. In this case we use the bean as a managed bean in the JSF context.
The chapter also explains the changes needed in the web.xml file for JSF.
The section on validators is very well done. It includes an example using the Apache Commons Validator framework. The point is to show that you should look for good validators rather than creating your own. Roll your own for domain specific requirements. It also covers validator methods in some detail. It also covers another useful utility from the Apache Commons Language Library.
There is a section on customizing messages that provide feedback to the user on various validation errors. It contains a section on how to modify the default messages on GlassFish. It is nice to know how to do this, but I would encourage users NOT to do it. You can Google for the default messages to see what they mean. If you change them, that option no longer exists. Also it is not intuitively obvious where the message is coming from. There is another example using a message bundle for your customized messages. I would HIGHLY recommend using this method.
There is a wonderful section on integrating JPA and JSF. This is a must read, and covers the practical side of JSF and JPA. It uses a model-view-controller paradigm. It shows how to use the JPA as a managed bean that gets set from the JSF page and saved/modified from the controller servlet. This is an excellent example of how to do it.
Finally, the chapter closes with a reference to the JSF Core components. I personally believe that this should have been an appendix. It really does not contribute to the flow of the book, or chapter. I went through the reference with a fine-toothed comb. The examples are really clean. I submitted some errata for the section, but it was done very well.
This is another chapter that makes the book worth purchasing.
Chapter 7
Java Messaging Service
This is a chapter that has a very specific setup for GlassFish. Most of the previous chapters were general enough on the specific technologies that they could be used on Apache Tomcat. The JMS server setup which is covered for GlassFish is very specific to the server.
The first part of the chapter covers how to set up the JMS connection factory, and JMS destination resources (Queue and Topic).
The examples that follow are very well done on how to use the various topics and queues.
I was really impressed with the authors examples. They were clean. I questioned one of the examples on durable topics, only to discover that the author was correct.
Chapter 8
Security
This chapter seems out of sequence. The Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) and Web Services chapters follow it. I would have recommended it to follow those two chapters. The author does cover securing EJBs and web services which require a security pre-cursor, but it seems to disrupt the flow of the book.
This chapter was a big disappointment. The topic is covered in minimal detail. This chapter is so important that it needs more coverage.
Here are some of the major omissions:
* Setting up a SSL/TLS connection using a self-signed certificate, or CA certificate
* Setting up an LDAP realm
* Optional attributes for the various realms
There is coverage of the various realms with a focus on file and JDBC.
The JDBC realm is complex. I understand that setting up a JDBC realm requires more work, but I am not sure how many people would use this type of realm.
The file realm coverage is detailed, but I am not sure that any enterprise would use this arrangement. It is not scalable.
The example login form using j_security_check is very useful, as well as, the example LogoutServlet.
The certificate realm is covered in fine detail. It is one of the best examples of how to configure this setup.
The LDAP and Solaris realms are weak. There is nothing here but a placeholder explanation. I can imagine that most enterprise users will have an LDAP domain that they will connect to. This topic could have included an example using OpenLDAP with its configuration in an appendix, or using openDS (http://opends.dev.java.net).
The JDBC realm setup has a number of serious errors which were reported as errata.
The section on defining custom realms is ok. It glosses a topic which requires more detail. Read more ›
I would recommend it as a book to have on your development bookshelf.
The book claims to be the complete guide to installing and configuring GlassFish. I would not give it that much credit. There is room for more extensive books on GlassFish. There are a number of topics that are very general and have nothing to do with the actual configuration of the server. A better book summary would be a guide to installing, configuring, and developing applications for the Glassfish server. It is really a Java EE 5 tutorial which features Glassfish.
As a book on GlassFish, it is very light in its coverage. As a tutorial for developers acquainting themselves with Java EE 5 and deployment on Glassfish it is very good. In my opinion it is targeted at developers familiar with J2EE who want to switch to JEE5, or junior developers trying to get a better comprehension of the EE environment. It is not for novice programmers.
Chapter 1
Getting Started with GlassFish
This chapter covers getting and installing GlassFish. It is very basic, but will get you up and running. It also includes how to set up your JNDI database connections. The majority of this information can be readily found on the GlassFish site on Java.net. There is a good example of how to set up multiple domains on GlassFish which is not easily gleaned from the site. There is a chart which shows how the --portbase command line option is used to set the ports on which GlassFish services connections. This provides the best explanation for this command line option and graphically depicts what the results are.
Chapter 2
Servlet Development and Deployment
This chapter is a very basic tutorial on servlet technology. It includes writing a simple servlets, web.xml files, and deployment file layout (war files). It includes some examples on html forms, request forwarding and response re-direction. There is nothing GlassFish specific and the files will just as easily deploy on Apache Tomcat unaltered. There is one item of note which is sun-web.xml related which has to do with how to change the context root. This is used if you do not want the default deployment context to match the name of the war file.
Chapter 3
JavaServer Pages
This chapter again has a basic tutorial on JSP technologies. There is a really good example of creating custom JSP tags and how to use them. Again, there is nothing that would prevent the war files from being deployed on Apache Tomcat. I wish that the author would have covered Unified Expression Language (EL) in more detail. It is more central to this technology on JEE5 platforms.
Chapter 4
Database Connectivity
This is the first chapter which covers a really important topic in the enhanced JEE5 database access functionality, new Java Persistence API (JPA), and its reference application server (GlassFish). The first example shows a servlet and how to connect to a database using the old form of JNDI lookup without resource injection. The next example shows the simplified version using resource injection of the DataSource. This removes all the plumbing of fetching our data source.
The next section covers Java Persistence API (JPA) and provides an in-depth tutorial. This is a key concept in JEE5. It introduces the Entity annotation on a POJO to convert it to a persistable object. The simple example that follows it demonstrates correctly how to to use JPA in a non-thread safe environment of a servlet using a UserTransaction. It also covers the persistence.xml file.
This chapter is a must for anyone who wants to learn JPA. The sections on entity relationships, and composite primary keys are done extremely well.
This chapter concludes on Java Persistence Query Language (JPQL) which is the follow-on from EJB QL.It is very light. I wish the author would have covered this very important topic in more detail. That being stated, the code sample is a perfect example.
The book is worth purchasing for this chapter alone.
Chapter 5
JSP Standard Tag Library
This chapter is a basic tutorial on the JSTL. I found a number of syntax mistakes, which were submitted back to Packt. The SQL JST Tag Library is covered. It was very simple. There is one note on No Suitable Driver SQL Exception which is often a hard thing to track down.There is nothing substantive about this chapter.
Chapter 6
JavaServer Faces
This is another JEE5 technology that needs more coverage in general. This chapter provides a good foundation on the reference JSF implementation. It is very well written. I am a big advocate of JSF and thoroughly examined this chapter.
The introductory examples are well done and give a good overview of the technology. The example Customer bean is the same bean that is used in JPA in chapter 4. This shows the consistency and flow between chapters. In this case we use the bean as a managed bean in the JSF context.
The chapter also explains the changes needed in the web.xml file for JSF.
The section on validators is very well done. It includes an example using the Apache Commons Validator framework. The point is to show that you should look for good validators rather than creating your own. Roll your own for domain specific requirements. It also covers validator methods in some detail. It also covers another useful utility from the Apache Commons Language Library.
There is a section on customizing messages that provide feedback to the user on various validation errors. It contains a section on how to modify the default messages on GlassFish. It is nice to know how to do this, but I would encourage users NOT to do it. You can Google for the default messages to see what they mean. If you change them, that option no longer exists. Also it is not intuitively obvious where the message is coming from. There is another example using a message bundle for your customized messages. I would HIGHLY recommend using this method.
There is a wonderful section on integrating JPA and JSF. This is a must read, and covers the practical side of JSF and JPA. It uses a model-view-controller paradigm. It shows how to use the JPA as a managed bean that gets set from the JSF page and saved/modified from the controller servlet. This is an excellent example of how to do it.
Finally, the chapter closes with a reference to the JSF Core components. I personally believe that this should have been an appendix. It really does not contribute to the flow of the book, or chapter. I went through the reference with a fine-toothed comb. The examples are really clean. I submitted some errata for the section, but it was done very well.
This is another chapter that makes the book worth purchasing.
Chapter 7
Java Messaging Service
This is a chapter that has a very specific setup for GlassFish. Most of the previous chapters were general enough on the specific technologies that they could be used on Apache Tomcat. The JMS server setup which is covered for GlassFish is very specific to the server.
The first part of the chapter covers how to set up the JMS connection factory, and JMS destination resources (Queue and Topic).
The examples that follow are very well done on how to use the various topics and queues.
I was really impressed with the authors examples. They were clean. I questioned one of the examples on durable topics, only to discover that the author was correct.
Chapter 8
Security
This chapter seems out of sequence. The Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) and Web Services chapters follow it. I would have recommended it to follow those two chapters. The author does cover securing EJBs and web services which require a security pre-cursor, but it seems to disrupt the flow of the book.
This chapter was a big disappointment. The topic is covered in minimal detail. This chapter is so important that it needs more coverage.
Here are some of the major omissions:
* Setting up a SSL/TLS connection using a self-signed certificate, or CA certificate
* Setting up an LDAP realm
* Optional attributes for the various realms
There is coverage of the various realms with a focus on file and JDBC.
The JDBC realm is complex. I understand that setting up a JDBC realm requires more work, but I am not sure how many people would use this type of realm.
The file realm coverage is detailed, but I am not sure that any enterprise would use this arrangement. It is not scalable.
The example login form using j_security_check is very useful, as well as, the example LogoutServlet.
The certificate realm is covered in fine detail. It is one of the best examples of how to configure this setup.
The LDAP and Solaris realms are weak. There is nothing here but a placeholder explanation. I can imagine that most enterprise users will have an LDAP domain that they will connect to. This topic could have included an example using OpenLDAP with its configuration in an appendix, or using openDS (http://opends.dev.java.net).
The JDBC realm setup has a number of serious errors which were reported as errata.
The section on defining custom realms is ok. It glosses a topic which requires more detail. Read more ›
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
To get right to the issue, if you are new to Glassfish and Java EE than this book is for you. It does a great job of covering all the major topics of the J2EE Server, JPA, EJB 3.0, JMS, WebServices, and Security.
I was not too happy to see the Glassfish apptool used throughout the book, since that is not a part of the J2EE Standard toolset. Also the discussions of jsp, and the JavaServer Pages Standard Tag Library is overkill, and not used as much in preference for Java Server Faces, and AJAX related technology.
Where the book lacks is in detail hints, and configuration setup. Such as Glassfish Clustering, JMS Queue Management, Management, Monitoring, Logging or connecting to Load Balancers or Web Servers.
It is also hard to write a book on Glassfish without including Netbeans, which works so well with Glassfish services. I think the upcomming Netbeans 6.0 Book, should also be required to close the development circle to being productive with this tool set. The Pair of tools Netbeans 6.0 and Glassfish, is as powerful of a combination I have found. The best of the Opensource free development tools, because of the close tie to the Java Enterprise Edition Standard.
I think the Author and reviewers did a great job in presenting the information. It just seams like another book for detailed Glassfish Implementations should be created. The Sun Manuals are dry even by my Sun Certified Web/Bus/Service standards. They were not meant the explain why you need to set the options or why should you care about it, whereas books like this gives you a reason to care.
We as a community are taking this App server mainstream and better documentation and books there are out there, is the key to the promotion of such a great product that everyone has spent time making. Go Glassfish, it's a great product.
Glassfish is my favorite to develop, and second on my list for production environments, basically because of documentation (And Cluster) issues.
I was not too happy to see the Glassfish apptool used throughout the book, since that is not a part of the J2EE Standard toolset. Also the discussions of jsp, and the JavaServer Pages Standard Tag Library is overkill, and not used as much in preference for Java Server Faces, and AJAX related technology.
Where the book lacks is in detail hints, and configuration setup. Such as Glassfish Clustering, JMS Queue Management, Management, Monitoring, Logging or connecting to Load Balancers or Web Servers.
It is also hard to write a book on Glassfish without including Netbeans, which works so well with Glassfish services. I think the upcomming Netbeans 6.0 Book, should also be required to close the development circle to being productive with this tool set. The Pair of tools Netbeans 6.0 and Glassfish, is as powerful of a combination I have found. The best of the Opensource free development tools, because of the close tie to the Java Enterprise Edition Standard.
I think the Author and reviewers did a great job in presenting the information. It just seams like another book for detailed Glassfish Implementations should be created. The Sun Manuals are dry even by my Sun Certified Web/Bus/Service standards. They were not meant the explain why you need to set the options or why should you care about it, whereas books like this gives you a reason to care.
We as a community are taking this App server mainstream and better documentation and books there are out there, is the key to the promotion of such a great product that everyone has spent time making. Go Glassfish, it's a great product.
Glassfish is my favorite to develop, and second on my list for production environments, basically because of documentation (And Cluster) issues.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I do have to agree with others who remarked that the book is not a comprehensive discussion of GlassFish. In this respect, it is somewhat of a downer. But, perhaps albeit inadvertantly, its best merit is elsewhere.
Over the years, the Java world has grown hugely from just the Java language. Roughly, the latter is more or less J2SE. But in the J2EE field, or what Sun seems to just be calling EE, many extra layers of code and packages have been added. Entire books have been written on each of the topics of servlets, Java Server Pages, Enterprise Java Beans, Java Server Faces, Java Messaging Service, JDBC, Web Services and Ajax. Where do you start, if you don't know any of these? One answer is right here. This book. Heffelfinger gives a concise overview of each topic. Enough technical details that a programmer can understand and appreciate. More to the point, you can see how these tie into each other.
Frankly, you'll still need those other books, to do serious coding in a given topic, or between topics. But the understanding and top level view here is valuable.
Over the years, the Java world has grown hugely from just the Java language. Roughly, the latter is more or less J2SE. But in the J2EE field, or what Sun seems to just be calling EE, many extra layers of code and packages have been added. Entire books have been written on each of the topics of servlets, Java Server Pages, Enterprise Java Beans, Java Server Faces, Java Messaging Service, JDBC, Web Services and Ajax. Where do you start, if you don't know any of these? One answer is right here. This book. Heffelfinger gives a concise overview of each topic. Enough technical details that a programmer can understand and appreciate. More to the point, you can see how these tie into each other.
Frankly, you'll still need those other books, to do serious coding in a given topic, or between topics. But the understanding and top level view here is valuable.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very light on medium-advanced topics
A bunch of times I have picked up this book hoping that it'd help me with something. This book seldom helps. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Royce
3.0 out of 5 stars
Purely introductory book
This book is suitable for people new to Java EE and Glassfish. The author gives a brief overview of the major parts of Java EE, but discuss nothing in detail. Read more
Published on June 25, 2009 by Bin Hu
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is a relief for someone just diving into web services.
I'm a java programmer (10+ years) and I've been trying to make the leap to web services but most of these book put me to sleep by explaining every new term in great detail. Read more
Published on May 19, 2009 by Dame Jayne of the Divine Chocolatier
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good product
I really like this product. It's a concise tutorial for beginners on some very important aspects of Java EE using glassfish. Read more
Published on April 17, 2009 by F. Morstatter
5.0 out of 5 stars
excellent Java EE 5 dev tutorial with GlassFish
In under 400 pages, the author managed to do a pretty good job at introducing both what's in Java EE 5 and using it on GlassFish. Read more
Published on September 28, 2008 by Pierre Clement
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not just an intro to Glassfish, a topic-by-topic summary of Java EE 5
I concur with the readers who say this book isn't just an "intro to Glassfish", that it's more of a "summary of the components of the Java EE 5 specification with emphasis on how... Read more
Published on June 5, 2008 by Rich Rosen
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing
I had pretty high hopes for this book but I'm pretty bummed out. It seems well written and I'm sure it is good for some people but just about everything in this book is available... Read more
Published on May 15, 2008 by Z. Smith
3.0 out of 5 stars
A good broad survey of Java EE topics - with decent Glassfish coverage
Full Disclosure: PACKT Publishing provided me a free copy of the book to review.
Overall Reviewer Rating: B+
From the back cover:
"Who this book is... Read more
Overall Reviewer Rating: B+
From the back cover:
"Who this book is... Read more
Published on December 14, 2007 by Kelvin Meeks
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly Recommended
The book assumes that the reader has experience of Java but no previous knowledge of Java EE or J2EE. As such, this is a great book for developers who are new to this arena. Read more
Published on December 11, 2007 by D. SALTER
2.0 out of 5 stars
Waste of time and $$$
I'm a sw developer using EJB3.0 and this App Server and I though it would give me some tricks to tune and have a better instance running but I'm truly disappointed I have to say... Read more
Published on December 10, 2007 by Hugo Alvarado
