Discuss whether the EJB architecture would be suitable to implement a massively multiplayer
online game (an application domain initially introduced in Section 1.2.2). What would be the
strengths and weaknesses of using EJB in this domain?

What will be an ideal response?

The EJB architecture makes it easier to develop distributed applications by hiding much of the complexity
from the programmer. It does this by imposing a particular architectural pattern on applications, that is one
where a potentially large number of clients access fairly coarse granularity resources and this needs protection
in terms of security and transaction management, a pattern which works best for applications such as
eCommerce or banking applications that fit naturally this style of architecture.
Massively multiplayer online games are quite a different class of application. For example, they require
low latency interaction with the world views and also may tolerate weak consistency to support such low
latency interaction. It is likely that the container-style interaction would not be right for this application domain
although it would provide some support for the development of such applications. More importantly, it is likely
that the non-functional properties (and the associated policies) provided for containers would not be right for
this domain, for example for transaction management (multiplayer online games would not require full
transaction management). There would also be question marks over whether an EJB implementation would
scale in the right way to large number of online players, all requiring low latency interactions.