J2EE and EJB Reference Material

[Saket Barve]

Hi,
Could some of you experienced folks give me a pointer regarding the best books to have in order to start learning EJB and J2EE?
I can claim to have sound knowledge in Java but EJB and J2EE are new to me.
One thought was to get the J2EE Complete Reference book. Please let me have your feedback at the earliest.
Thanks,
Saket

[Ajith Kallambella]

As esoteric as it may read, keeping the J2EE and EJB specs handy is highly recommended. You bookmark them if you haven't done it already.
The J2EE tutorial and Blueprints on Sun's website including the famous Petstore implementation is a must read.
www.theserverside.com is an excellent resource for J2EE and EJB related articles. You can also download the online version of very popular "Matering EJB" book by Ed Roman.
www.ibm.com/developerworks/java is another oasis of excellent articles and tutorials. Make sure you not only read them, but also keep visiting them for regular updates.
Last but not least, practice should be an important part of learning J2EE/EJB like anything else. Download an app server( many of them offer free trial downloads) and start writing code!