I know there was a bug in Toplink with similiar symptoms, but it is apparently not the same problem as it works fine in dev. environment for you.
https://glassfish.dev.java.net/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3867
Generally speaking, it is not a recommanded practice to start a transaction from the client-side. So far I know, this is an optional feature of the specifications, and not all containers will support it (especially OC4J, which would explain the issue with toplink).
Whenever possible, you should expose a facade to your client that hide the internal complexity. The methods exposed in the facade should map to your business use cases.
Concerning the IP problem, you can try to change the IP address of the IIOP listener. Instead of 0.0.0.0, try with either the hostname or the IP address. I remember we also had some issues with client installed in different subnets trying to connect to the same Glassfish instance.
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