adam bien's blog

You can use both annotations to inject EJBs. Start with @Inject and if you encounter any problems, switch to @EJB.

@Inject does not have any methods / attributes--it is just a plain annotation:

@Target(value = {ElementType.METHOD, ElementType.CONSTRUCTOR, ElementType.FIELD})
@Retention(value = RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Documented
public @interface Inject {
}

On the other hand, the @EJB annotation allows you to pass additional information, which could be useful to reference remote EJBs, or EJBs which cannot be simple injected in the "Convention over Configuration" style:

@Target(value = {ElementType.TYPE, ElementType.METHOD, ElementType.FIELD})
@Retention(value = RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
public @interface EJB {

    public String name() default "";

    public String beanName() default "";

    public Class beanInterface() default Object.class;

    public String mappedName() default "";
}

Sometimes (e.g. for exposure of as JMX managed bean) it may be necessary to use a "self" reference to an EJB. You could inject a reference to "self" with @EJB, but not @Inject.

See also an in-depth discussion in the "Real World Java EE Patterns--Rethinking Best Practices" book (Second Iteration, "Green Book"), page 411 in, chapter "Self-Invoking Beans"

See you at Java EE Workshops at MUC Airport (March 25th-28th)!