Transaction Manager: This component is distributed across the transactional system. It manages and coordinates the work involved in the transaction. The transaction manager is exposed by the javax.transaction.TransactionManager interface in JTA.

Transaction Context: A transaction context identifies a particular transaction. In JTA the corresponding interface is javax.transaction.Transaction.

Transactional Client: A transactional client can invoke operations on one or more transactional objects in a single transaction. The transactional client that started the transaction is called the transaction originator. A transaction client is either an explicit or implicit user of JTA interfaces and has no interface representation in the JTA.

Transactional Object: A transactional object is an object whose behavior is affected by operations performed on it within a transactional context. A transactional object can also be a transactional client. Most Enterprise Java Beans are transactional objects.

Recoverable Resource: A recoverable resource is a transactional object whose state is saved to stable storage if the transaction is committed, and whose state can be reset to what it was at the beginning of the transaction if the transaction is rolled back. At commit time, the transaction manager uses the two-phase XA protocol when communicating with the recoverable resource to ensure transactional integrity when more than one recoverable resource is involved in the transaction being committed. Transactional databases and message brokers like JBossMQ are examples of recoverable resources. A recoverable resource is represented using the javax.transaction.xa.XAResource interface in JTA.