Operations

An operation is what the Java(TM) clients use to launch business processes in the application logic layer. An invoker (see Bean Invoker Factory) maps the client operation to the business process.

An operation has a requester that requests its execution, provides input data, and eventually receives the results. Since an operation is completely separate from the requester (the entity that launches an operation), different requesters can run the same operation.

An operation can be a generic operation or a concrete operation. A generic operation provides common functionality for many concrete operations while a concrete operation provides the functionality required just for the operation itself. A concrete operation usually extends a generic operation to take advantage of its common functionality and may consist of only XML definitions. In this case, the operation uses code from a generic operation and the operation definitions from the concrete operation.