References are logical names used to locate external resources for enterprise applications. References are defined in the application's deployment descriptor file. At deployment, the references are bound to the physical location (global JNDI name) of the resource in the target operational environment. This product supports the following types of references:

• An EJB reference is a logical name used to locate the home interface of an enterprise bean.

• A resource reference is a logical name used to locate a connection factory object.

These objects define connections to external resources such as databases and messaging systems. The container makes references available in a JNDI
naming subcontext. By convention, references are organized as follows:

• EJB references are made available in the java:comp/env/ejb subcontext.

• Resource references are made available as follows:

  • JDBC DataSource references are declared in the java:comp/env/jdbc subcontext.

  • JMS connection factories are declared in the java:comp/env/jms subcontext.

  • JavaMail connection factories are declared in the java:comp/env/mail subcontext.

  • URL connection factories are declared in the java:comp/env/url subcontext.

Sub-topics
EJB references
EJB JNDI names for beans

Related tasks
Developing applications that use