Jini

[Asuthosh Borikar]

What is Jini? What is it's place(if any) in the J2EE architecture?

[Frank Carver]

Jini is an alternative distributed computing system based on RMI, serialization and the concept of "leasing". In some ways it can be viewed as a competitor for J2EE components such as CORBA, but it is really aimed at a different market.

[Shakti Sharma]

what its market?

[Keith Edwards]

See the comments in other threads about the interaction between Jini and EJBs/J2EE...this is definitely the most common question so far!
I did want to answer this one though:

Originally posted by shakti sharma:
what its market?

Sun has promoted Jini as a way for small hardware gizmos to interconnect with each other. While this is certainly one possible application of the technology, I think Sun has sold Jini a bit short by focusing so much on small devices... with the result that most people think that Jini is *only* for hooking up gizmos.
Jini will find its first home in software services. It'll be used for building reliable EJB-based systems, and other, non-EJB-based backend services. It'll also be used as a way of interconnecting clients to services. It's complimentary to the J2EE model of computing; not an alternative.
I know of quite a few companies that use Jini internally as a way to architect their in-house software systems for reliability and administration-free interconnectivity.
Cheers,
-keith

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Keith Edwards
xerox palo alto research center
author of: Core Jini
Which is also available as A Video Course
Read an Example Chapter - Chapter 3 or Chapter 10.