How is the passivation of Entity beans Managed?
The passivation of Entity beans is managed by the container. To passivate an instance, the container first invokes the ejbStore() method for synchronizing the database with the bean instance, then the container invokes the ejbPassivate() method. It will then return the bean instance back to the pooled state. (Every bean has an instance pool.) There are two ways for transitioning an entity bean from the ready to the pooled state, by using the ejbPassivate() or ejbRemove() method. The container uses ejbPassivate() to disassociate the bean instance from the entity object identity, and uses ejbRemove() to remove the entity object. When the instance is put back into the pool, it is no longer associated with an entity object identity. The container can now assign the instance to any entity object within the same entity bean home. A bean instance in the pool can be removed by using unsetEntityContext().
