In a Java EE application, a transaction is a series of actions that must all complete successfully, or else all the changes in each action are backed out. Transactions end in either a commit or a rollback.

The Java Transaction API (JTA) allows applications to access transactions in a manner that is independent of specific implementations. JTA specifies standard Java interfaces between a transaction manager and the parties involved in a distributed transaction system: the transactional application, the Java EE server, and the manager that controls access to the shared resources affected by the transactions.

The JTA defines the UserTransaction interface that applications use to start, commit, or roll back transactions. Application components get a UserTransaction object through a JNDI lookup by using the name java:comp/UserTransaction or by requesting injection of a UserTransaction object. An application server uses a number of JTA-defined interfaces to communicate with a transaction manager; a transaction manager uses JTA-defined interfaces to interact with a resource manager.

The JTA 1.2 specification is available at http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=907.