Jini a Web Service ?

[Helen Thomas]

Jini is becoming recognised as the original Web Service. Why isn't it very popular here?

[Henry Wong]

Jini just never seemed to have gotten traction.

I am actually working on a project that involves Jini -- Javaspaces to be exact. But the number of projects involving Jini definitely seems to be almost non-existent these days.

Henry

[Helen Thomas]

Not for the masses then.

[Helen Thomas]

Henry, what learning path would you recommend.

Someone who knows CORBA wants to start learning Java and a distributed technology within the Java family.

Thanks for the reply.

[Ellen Zhao]

SOAP perhaps?

[Henry Wong]

Originally posted by Helen Thomas:
Henry, what learning path would you recommend.

Someone who knows CORBA wants to start learning Java and a distributed technology within the Java family.

Thanks for the reply.

Wish I was an authority on the subject... basically I am an old-school trail-by-fire type of person. Been a Java developer and consultant since 1995, and don't have a single certification...

Henry

[William Brogden]

I think you will find the http://www.jini.org/ site helpful in getting started.
Jini enthusiasts seem to have recognized that they need to do more to make it easy to get started and have been working on the problem.
Personally I think JavaSpaces is a cool technology for distributed systems - such a simple idea and yet so powerful.
Bill

[Helen Thomas]

Thanks William and Henry.

It's odd that it does seem to be taking off as a Web Service. The term wasn't coined when Jini first appeared.

[William Brogden]

To call Jini a webservice is a misuse of the term - in my opinion. Jini is a distributed computing technology.
Web service to me implies a published WSDL interface and XML.
Bill

[Helen Thomas]

William, you're right.

It has been described as the first Service Orientated Architecture pre-dating Web Services.

[William Brogden]

Don't you just love the ebb and flow of IT buzzwords - many times all talking about the same thing. I suppose it keeps a certain class of consultant busy, but the danger is that a "pointy haired manager" will latch on to the latest term and insist that it must be adopted at once! I think Web Service is now two generations behind in buzz
I was just reading a Gartner Whitepaper which extols the virtues of:
RTI - RealTime Infrastructure
and
IT Infrastructure Utility
Correlated with the commercial offering such as HP's Adaptive Enterprise and IBM's On Demand
.. onward through the fog as we say in Austin.

Bill

[Helen Thomas]

I don't know. Jini seems quite versatile.
Jini is used a lot in mobile computing and telecommunications in the UK.

Perhaps we need a broader definition of Web Services than implying a published WSDL interface and XML.
A manager would be interested in "total cost of ownership" and if the only way he can get it passed by the standards guys and finance departments by calling anything a Web Service he/she would.
[ December 18, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Arjun Shastry]

Originally posted by William Brogden:

IT Infrastructure Utility
Correlated with the commercial offering such as HP's Adaptive Enterprise and IBM's On Demand
Bill

I think they call it ITIL,Information Technology Infrastructure Library.HP is taking a lead.

[William Brogden]

It may be that Jini is still seen as being limited to Java to Java communication. Also, getting started with Jini is seen as being something you don't casually dip into.
My main contact with Jini has been through JavaSpaces - an under-appreciated technology in my opinion.
Bill

[Helen Thomas]

It's been said that Jini is more powerful than EJB and more concise as there's no transactions layer. Someone with experience in CORBA should find it easier to get to grips with than someone with no distributed computing experience, I feel.

Also the current version appears to be with JDK 1.5.
But there isn't much demand for the skill from outside the distributed technology industry. i.e. it's not easy to break in. But with CORBA experience perhaps it's worth a go.
[ December 18, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Helen Thomas]

Jini was badly mis-marketed by Sun.
There's a new grid product Infiniflow that uses Jini and Javaspaces heavily.
Developed by Investment bank architects in another life.

[William Brogden]

Sun pushed Jini like crazy but only a few people seemed to catch on to what they were talking about, so I don't know if you could say it was "mis-marketed." Some ideas just are before "their time."
Your Infiniflow reference produced some interesting browsing - thanks.
Bill

[Lee Graba]

Sun pushed Jini like crazy but only a few people seemed to catch on to what they were talking about, so I don't know if you could say it was "mis-marketed." Some ideas just are before "their time."

While some of the ideas of Jini were before their time, Sun also mismarketed it. They pitched it as an infrastructure for embedded devices and was completely mute on how it could be used in enterprise applications. This was especially bad since at the time Sun was about 2 years away from having a small footprint JVM that would be necessary to use Jini as an infrastructure for small devices.

If you follow the traffic on the Jini forums, it appears that most of the developers are using Jini (and JavaSpaces) for enterprise type applications.