To enjoy the benefits of this course, experience with the Java Standard Edition Platform 2 is desired as well as Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI).
If you need more information on RMI, see the Java RMI mentorial in your JDK documentation. It will help if you are familiar with distributed programming concepts such as those in CORBA or COM, but this is not essential.
Experience with distributed databases and transactions will provide a useful context for entity beans.

You can take this course on Windows, Macintosh, or Linux platforms.
However, to complete the exercises in this course, you must have access to a computer running the Java2 Enterprise Edition Reference Implementation that currently only runs on Windows, AIX, HP-UX, or Solaris.
This restriction will change over time as it is ported to more platforms.
Please check JavaSoft Site for more information.
In the next lesson, the requirements for the course will be discussed.

When we set out to create this course, our goal was to present Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) to developers, with a keen eye toward how this technology can be used in everyday, real-world applications.
JSR-345: Enterprise JavaBeansTM, Version 3.2 EJB Core Contracts and Requirements is a deep spec that addresses the needs of beginning developers and hardcore power users alike. That is a large audience to satisfy and, as a reference guide, the EJB spec document covers it well. In creating a course about how to use EJB, we had to narrow our audience; nonetheless, we believe that we have created a course that will serve the needs of a majority of Java EE developers.
This course is targeted at developers who are experienced with Java, have built single- or multi-tier applications using earlier versions of EJB or other technologies, and are ready to take on the challenges of building enterprise applications using standards-based technology. Recognizing that the course material covering the EJB and Java Persistence API (JPA) specifications can be daunting, we have provided an on-ramp for developers, unfolding EJB one section at a time, and giving you the information and code examples you need.