What is J2EE Connector Architectcure?

J2EE Connector Architecture(JCA) is a standard architecture that targets integration of new web based application with existing heterogeneous Enterprise Information Systems(EIS), enhancing Business to Business(B2B) transactions.While various application servers extend their containers and support connectivity to heterogeneous EISs and enterprise tools and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) vendors provide tools and frameworks to simplify the EIS integration task.

Under JCA hood:

- JCA enables application components deployed on the application server to access the underlying EIS systems.

- JCA provides an EIS vendor specific standard resource adapter for its EIS. 

- The resource adapter plugs into an application server, providing connectivity between the EIS, the application server, and the enterprise application.(Look at the diagram given below)

- An application server vendor has to extend its system to support the JCA which assures of seamless connectivity to multiple EISs. 

- One can have multiple resource adapters. They all are are pluggable into an application server and each  unique resource adapter corresponds to a particular type of EIS. An EIS vendor has to provide just one standard resource adapter which has the capability to plug in to any application server that supports the JCA.