Formal modeling of the enterprise javabeans™component integration framework

Abstract

An emerging trend in the engineering of complex systems is the use of component integration frameworks. Such a framework prescribes an architectural design that permits flexible composition of third-party components into applications. A good example is Sun Microsystems' Enterprise Java Beans™ (EJB) framework, which supports object-oriented, distributed, enterprise-level applications, such as account management systems. One problem with frameworks like EJB is that they are documented informally, making it difficult to understand precisely what is provided by the framework, and what is required to use it. We believe formal specification can help, and in this paper show how a formal architectural description language can be used to describe and provide insight into such frameworks.