Any non-trivial Java EE application will connect to a Relational Database Management Server (RDBMS). Supported RDBMS systems include JavaDB, Oracle, Derby, Sybase, DB2, Pointbase, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Informix, Cloudscape, and SQL Server. In this section, we will demonstrate how to set up GlassFish to communicate with a MySQL database, the procedure is similar for other RDBMS systems.
GlassFish comes bundled with an RDBMS called JavaDB. This RDBMS is based on Apache Derby. To limit the downloads and configuration needed to follow this book's code, most examples needing an RDBMS use the bundled JavaDB RDBMS. The instructions in this section are for illustrating how to connect GlassFish to a third party RDBMS.