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An outbound connector includes ManagedConnectionFactory and ManagedConnection implementations. The ManagedConnection represents an actual "physical" connection to the resource manager (database). The ManagedConnectionFactory contains configuration for the desired ManagedConnections such as the location of the resource manager. It also contains matching code to select a connection matching a request from a set of connections. The ManagedConnection also can provide connection handles that the connection factory can return.
In geronimo we wrap the ManagedConnectionFactory with a gbean so it can be configured like other geronimo components.

JDBC

JDBC support is generally provided through wrapping JDBC artifacts in J2CA artifacts from the codehaus tranql project. Some databases such as Firebird also provide J2CA implementations that can be deployed directly. Tranql provides a framework for constructing outbound resource adapters and a variety of published adapters.

Generic Wrapper

All JDBC implementations provide at least a Driver implementation. Tranql provides a generic connector org.tranql:tranql-connector-ra:1.4:rar that can be used with any Driver implementation. This provides only local transaction support and requires that you encode any specific connection properties in the jdbc url.

Database specific wrappers

Most JDBC implementations also provide DataSource, ConnectionPoolDataSource, or XADataSource implementations. The tranql framework is designed to make it easy to write database specific wrappers for these classes. With such wrappers properties that can be set on these connection factories or "managed connection factories" are exposed as ManagedConnectionFactory config-properties and can be documented in the ra.xml. Currently tranql provides wrappers for DB2 (xa), Derby (local and xa, embedded and client), mysql (local and xa), oracle (local and xa), and postgres (local and xa).

JMS

As of J2EE 1.4 JMS implementations are expected to provide a J2CA resource adapter for use in EE environments. Geronimo relies on this for JMS support. Geronimo provides ActiveMQ as the default JMS provider.

EIS

The J2CA spec envisages connection between EE servers and EIS through J2CA connectors. J2CA provides for outbound connections as already described and inbound connections to MDBs. Along with JMS style asynchronous inbound messaging, in which the message may be delivered in a container controlled transaction, message delivery may be performed in an adapter provided transaction. Currently there are no facilities for security context import but this is expected in the next J2CA spec revisiion.