Lightweight Java EE. Is that even possible? In the past, J2EE applications and especially application servers have been considered a heavyweight and cumbersome technology. And up to some degree deservedly so. APIs were quite unwieldy to use. There was a lot of XML configuration required, which eventually led to the use of XDoclet, a tool used to generate XML based on meta information put into JavaDoc comments. Application servers were also cumbersome to work with, especially with regard to startup and deployment times.

However, since the name change to Java EE and especially since version 6, these assumptions are not true anymore. Annotations were introduced, which originally emerged from the XDoclet-motivated JavaDoc tags. And a lot has happened to improve the productivity and developer experience.

This chapter will cover the following topics:

• What makes a technology lightweight
• Why Java EE standards help reducing work
• How to choose project dependencies and archive formats
• The benefits of zero-dependency enterprise applications
• Modern Java EE application servers
• The one application per application server approach