Transaction Handling in COM, EJB and .NET

Abstract: The technology evolution has shown a very impressive performance in the last years by introducing several technologies that are based on the concept of component. As time passes, new versions of Component- Based technologies are released in order to improve services provided by previous ones. One important issue that regards these technologies is transactional activity. Transactions are important because they consist in sending different small amounts of information collected properly in a single combined unit which makes the process simpler, less expensive and also improves the reliability of the whole system, reducing its chances to go through possible failures. Different Component-Based technologies offer different ways of handling transactions. In this paper, we will review and discuss how transactions are handled in three of them: COM, EJB and .NET. It can be expected that .NET offers more efficient mechanisms due to the fact of being released later than the other two technologies. Nevertheless, COM and EJB are still present in the market and their services are still widely used. Comparing transaction handling in these technologies will be helpful to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each of them. This comparison and evaluation will be seen in two main perspectives: performance and security.