All the code in this book is written using Java SE 7. You will need a Java IDE (Integrated Development Environment) such as Eclipse, Netbeans, or IntelliJ. Additionally, you will need a relational database, such as Oracle, DB2, MySQL, or PostgreSQL. The database used to create the examples in this book is PostgreSQL database (version 9.3).

Most of the examples in the initial chapters are single-threaded Java applications that do not need to run inside a Java Enterprise container or Spring. However, in later chapters, you will need to test your enterprise application in a container. In this case, JBoss (AS 7) or Spring (version 4.2) were chosen.

Although, you may not need it, it is highly recommended that you use a dependency manager for your work. The examples in this book use Apache Maven, version 3.