Asynchronous processing, non-blocking I/O, events and messaging are keys to more reactive applications. Fortunately Java EE has long organically provided such features in the platform at pretty much every key API layer including Servlet, CDI, EJB and JMS. These features were strengthened further in Java EE 7 and even more could be done in Java EE 8. Spurred by a real world developer I met at a conference writing a highly reactive IoT application with Java EE, I've actually developed a talk about reactive features in Java EE (click here if you can't see the embedded slide deck):
One such feature added in JAX-RS 2/Java EE 7 gets surprisingly little exposure - asynchronous capabilities added for both server-side REST endpoints as well as clients. Fortunately Sam Sepassi has stepped up nicely to fill the gap with a detailed blog entry that covers both the servers-side and client side capabilities. Bonus points to Sam for demonstrating how nicely JAX-RS 2 asynchronous endpoints and EJB @Asynchronous work together! Sam also shows the Java EE 7 Concurrency Utilities in action and does a nice job explaining the basics/what's going on under the hood.
