detecting a first definition of a first “use” relationship between a first entity bean and a first session bean in a first deployment descriptor file, the “use” relationship specified in a container managed uses (CMU) section of the first deployment descriptor file, the “use” relationship specifying that the first entity bean uses the first session bean;

said first session bean being one of a stateless session bean, a stateful session bean, a container-managed persistent (CMP) bean, and bean-managed persistent (BMP) bean;

the first entity bean being a customer source entity bean and the first session bean being a credit card target session bean, said CMU section of the first deployment descriptor file including a specification that said customer source entity bean uses said credit card session target bean;

said CMU section including an attribute for a remote target session that indicates whether standard remote exceptions are to be passed through to a client or the first entity bean;

generating a getter method on said first entity bean, the getter method performing a manual lookup using Java Native Directory Interface (JNDI) to obtain a reference to the first session bean through a home interface;

said generating the getter method including generating a getCreditCard( ) method that performs a manual lookup using JNDI based on a key that is the home interface name and namespace of the credit card target session bean;

responsive to a first user invoking said getter method, performing a JNDI lookup of the home interface of the first session bean and returning a first session bean interface to the first user;

detecting a second definition of a second relationship between a second owning entity bean and a third owned entity bean in a second deployment descriptor file, wherein the relationship is an “owns” relationship, the “owns” relationship specified in a container managed relationship (CMR) section of the second deployment descriptor file, wherein said CMR section is used when said second deployment descriptor file is processed to recognize that said second owning entity bean owns said third owned entity bean;

responsive to processing said second deployment descriptor file, recognizing that said second owning entity bean owns said third owned entity bean and propagating key fields of said second owning entity bean transparently and automatically to said third owned entity bean;

said second owning entity bean being an order bean and said third owned entity bean being a line item bean;

responsive to processing said second deployment descriptor file, propagating an order ID of the order bean to a key of the line item bean;

in response to a subsequent deployment that said order bean is owned by a customer entity bean; propagating key fields of the customer entity bean to the order bean, and then propagating the key fields from the order bean to the line item bean;

detecting a third definition of a third “reference” relationship between a fourth referencing entity bean and a fifth plurality of referenced entity beans in a third deployment descriptor file;

in response to processing said third deployment descriptor file, generating a get<Role> method on said fourth referencing entity bean that returns a list of keys of the fifth plurality of referenced entity beans;

responsive to a second user invoking said get<Role> method, returning said list of keys to said second user, wherein only said list of keys is retrieved and no entity bean needs to be instantiated or cached;

in response to a job scheduler starting a batch job, accessing a batch definition to identify a list of batch beans to invoke;

said batch definition including a number of job steps, classes, conditions, and checkpoints that are necessary for the batch job;

said batch job being a job to calculate interests for a list of bank accounts; and

creating a global transaction that invokes the list of batch beans inside a loop until a job completion indication is received that indicates all interests for the list of back accounts have been calculated.