A resource adapter is specific to the Enterprise Information System (EIS) for which it was developed. It provides the system-level operations needed to communicate and operate with the EIS. A resource adapter which supports the JCA interfaces can be used with any application server which also supports these interfaces. The resource adapter reveals its capabilities to the application server through a JCA-defined API. Using the defined API, the application server can effectively incorporate the services of the resource adapter into its operations while isolating the applications themselves from the underlying implementation of the EIS. Important requirements for effective and scalable integration with EIS systems are services such as:
connection management and pooling.
transaction management to support global transactions, i.e. transactions which involve both the application server and EIS.
logging and tracing.
and a security framework enabling both container-managed and bean-managed sign-on.