AtomikosDataSourceBean example

AtomikosDataSourceBean ds = new AtomikosDataSourceBean();
ds.setUniqueResourceName("mssql");
ds.setXaDataSourceClassName("com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerXADataSource");
Properties p = new Properties();
p.setProperty ( "user" , "mssql" );
p.setProperty ( "password" , "microsoft" );
p.setProperty ( "serverName" , "localhost-mssql" );
ds.setXaProperties ( p );
ds.setConnectionPoolSize(5);

Notes

SQL Server version 2005 Express with Microsoft JDBC driver version 1.2 is known to be working fine. The Microsoft JDBC driver version 1.1 has a lot of problems with XA support and is not supported.

Getting XA support in SQL server is no easy task.

You have to copy the sqljdbc_xa.dll inside SQL Server's binn folder then execute xa_install.sql as user sa as documented. You must also enable MS DTC's XA support and grant SqlJDBCXAUser role to your user as explained here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa342335.aspx

Note to Windows XP users: Windows XP lacks some internal components related to DTC. Microsoft has fixed this issue and released a Hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922668.

Linux

For SQL Server on Linux: see this page.