You can always use the transaction services in a J2EE app server - with or without EJBs. The catch is you have to open,commit,rollback explicitly in code using JTA.

Truth, I had forgotten about JTA.

More to the point, I've rarely worked on systems that required transactional semantics that didn't exactly map to the single database I was using.

We're a financial application. Our clients would like to be able to share in our transactions via the backend interface, and as I mentioned some of our stuff doesn't hit the database at all.

I've never used EntityBeans and all that I read about them implies they are a solution in search of a problem. Avoid them. Better to make use of a conventional OR mapping layer like TopLink, EOF, or one of the new JDO implementations like SolarMetric's (which I've seen demo'd but haven't used - it looks a lot like EOF).

One of the problems I have with Entity EJBs is shared by all OR mapping tools: we don't expose the tables or views. All access is done via stored procedures for both security and business logic.

Of the lot of them, the one that seems the most sensible is Rod Johnson's "J2EE Design and Development".

I'll check it out, thanks.

Thanks for the comments.