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Will Jini grant Sun's wish?

<em>InfoWorld</em>'s Test Center takes Jini apart at the seams

By Sean Dugan and <em>infoworld Electric</em>, InfoWorld, 10/01/98

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Sun Microsystems has a vision for network computing in the next century, and the technology Sun hopes will make this dream a reality is called Jini. Jini, broadly speaking, is a Java-based architecture that takes operating system services and spreads their functionality across the entire network. In more prosaic terms, Jini is a piece of Java software that runs on top of Java virtual machines (JVMs) and gives devices plug-and-play network functionality. Sun dreams of a future in which any device with a processor and a little RAM will interoperate with its peers to scale new heights of computing. It's a heady vision, but at the very least, we might be one step closer to a future free of device-driver disorder and network log-in hassles.

For example, in Sun's bold new world, a user will be able to plug a PalmPilot into a network socket and instantly be recognized, automatically becoming part of the network. With such a handheld device, the user will be able to access data easily on one computer and use the services of another computer to translate that data. The user will then be able to print out the data on the nearest printer, without pre-loading the printer drivers on the PalmPilot. This magic is accomplished when the Pilot automatically downloads a Java-based printer driver. And this automatic and easy integration with the network and its applications will apply to virtually any electronic device, from PCs to cellular phones.

This concept of a distributed computing architecture is hardly something new, or even that original. David Gelernter, a Yale University computer science professor, pioneered work on distributed architectures with the Linda project. Competing ideas are being pursued by Lucent Technologies with its Inferno technology, IBM with its T Space project, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory with its Parallel virtual machine project. Microsoft also has ambitious plans for a distributed operating system, called Project Millennium.

With its Java programming language and virtual platform, though, Sun is in a unique position to drive operating systems into the next century. However, the company has a considerable journey ahead if it is to turn a vibrant dream with a specification into a significant paradigm shift in computing. It's too early to determine its potential impact, but Jini holds great promise for reducing network-administration problems and possibly creating a whole new class of powerful applications.

How it works

Jini is a Java infrastructure for networks that allows devices and applications to automatically join a network and offer their services across that network. Jini does not resolve all of the details of how a particular application will function across the network, but rather it provides the crucial capability for those services to be aware of each other and make a connection.

At Jini's core is the Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) from Sun's JDK 1.2, the networking services that let Java objects interact with each other across the wire. In this way, Jini is a conceptual and practical extension of Enterprise JavaBeans, the component software model of Java.


For more enterprise computing news, visit InfoWorld. Story copyright InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.

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Resources
  • Sun's Jini page http://java.sun.com/products/jini
  • Bill Blundon tackles the question"Why Jini matters" in his column this month http://www.javaworld.com/jw-10-1998/jw-10-blundon.html
  • Rawn Shah gives you the skinny on Jini in his "first-look" at the technology way back in August! http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-08-1998/jw-08-jini.html
  • IBM's T Spaces http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/TSpaces
  • Lucent Technologies' Inferno http://www.lucent-inferno.com/Pages/Developers/Documentation/White_Papers/index.html
  • Microsoft's Project Millennium http://research.microsoft.com/sn/Millennium/
  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Parallel virtual machine technology http://www.ornl.gov/publications/numbers/parallel.html