1 Introduction

About EclipseLink

EclipseLink is suitable for use with a wide range of Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and Java application architectures. Use EclipseLink to design, implement, deploy, and optimize an advanced object-persistence and object-transformation layer that supports a variety of data sources and formats, including the following:

• JPA – For object-relational persistence, supporting the JPA (Java Persistence API) specification and a native API

• NoSQL – For object persistence of non-relational NoSQL and EIS databases through JPA and a native API

• JAXB – For object-XML transformation, supporting the JAXB (Java Architecture for XML Binding) specification and a native API

• JSON – For object-JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) transformation

• DBWS – For generation of web services from database tables and stored procedures

The EclipseLink native API includes:

• Relational – For transactional persistence of Java objects to a relational database accessed using Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) drivers.

• Object-Relational Data Type – For transactional persistence of Java objects to special-purpose structured data source representations optimized for storage in object-relational data type databases such as Oracle Database.

• Enterprise information system (EIS) – For transactional persistence of Java objects to a non-relational data source accessed using a Java EE Connector architecture (JCA) adapter and any supported EIS record type, including indexed, mapped, or XML.

• XML – For non-transactional, non-prescription (in-memory) conversion between Java objects and XML Schema Document (XSD)-based XML documents using Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB).

EclipseLink includes support for EJB 3.0 and the Java Persistence API (JPA) in Java EE and Java SE environments including integration with a variety of application servers including:

• Oracle WebLogic Server

• Oracle Glassfish Server

• JBoss Web Server

• IBM WebSphere application server

• SAP NetWeaver

• Oracle Containers for Java EE (OC4J)

• Various other web containers, such as Apache Tomcat, Eclipse Gemini, IBM WebSphere CE, and SpringSource tcServer

EclipseLink lets you quickly capture and define object-to-data source and object-to-data representation mappings in a flexible, efficient metadata format.

The EclipseLink runtime lets your application exploit this mapping metadata with a simple session facade that provides in-depth support for standard APIs such as JPA, and JAXB as well as EclipseLink-specific extensions to those standards.

About This Documentation

EclipseLink is the reference implementation of the Java Persistence Architecture (JPA) 2.0 specification It also includes many enhancements and extensions.

This document explains the EclipseLink enhancements and extensions to JPA. Please refer to the JPA specification for full documentation of core JPA. Where appropriate, this documentation provides links to the pertinent section of the specification.