10.2.4. Managed Beans

Prior to Java EE 6, there was no clear definition of the term bean in the Java EE platform. There were several concepts referred to as beans in the Java EE specifications, including EJB beans and JSF managed beans. Third-party frameworks such as Spring and Seam introduced their own ideas of what defined a bean.

Java EE 6 established a common definition in the Managed Beans specification. Managed Beans are defined as container-managed objects with minimal programming restrictions, otherwise known by the acronym POJO (Plain Old Java Object). They support a small set of basic services, such as resource injection, lifecycle callbacks and interceptors. Companion specifications, such as EJB and CDI, build on this basic model.

With very few exceptions, almost every concrete Java class that has a constructor with no parameters (or a constructor designated with the annotation @Inject) is a bean. This includes every JavaBean and every EJB session bean. The only requirement to enable the mentioned services in beans is that they reside in an archive (a JAR, or a Java EE module such as a WAR or EJB JAR) that contains a special marker file: META-INF/beans.xml.