Data transfer object (DTO), formerly known as value objects or VO,is a design pattern used to transfer data between software application subsystems. DTOs are often used in conjunction with data access objects to retrieve data from a database.

A DTO is nothing more than a container class that exposes properties but no methods. A DTO is helpful whenever you need to group values in ad hoc structures for passing data around.

When DTOs are used, the presentation layer and the service layer share data contracts rather than classes. A data contract is essentially a neutral representation of the data that interacting components exchange. The data contract describes the data a component receives, but it is not a system-specific class, like an entity. At the end of the day, a data contract is a class, but it is more like a helper class specifically created for a particular service method.

DTOs serve dual purposes: first, they work around the problem that entity beans are not serializable; second, they implicitly define an assembly phase where all data to be used by the view are fetched and marshalled into the DTOs before returning control to the presentation tier.

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