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Internet World: Sun whips up Jini support
Demos with manufacturing partners on the way
Sun Microsystems Inc. is busy ramping up support for its Jini distributed computing architecture and will show off some of the first fruits of its labor in a demonstration with manufacturing partners in December, according to John Gage, chief scientist at Sun Labs, in an Internet World keynote address in New York on October 7.The problem with a networked world
Gage was joined on the stage by Sun's vice president of research, Bill Joy, to extol the virtues of Jini and explain why it is necessary to cut down on software complexity as a range of consumer goods from CD players to cars become networked.
To help make his point, Gage walked on stage with a video camera, hooked it to his laptop computer and showed the mess of wires linking computers to the Internet backstage, which he had videotaped a minute before.
"Does that look consumer-grade?" Gage asked. As he reinforced the point by training the camera on the back of the podium to show a similar tangle, the connection between the camera and the Windows-based laptop fell. "Come on, Microsoft," he quipped.
That failed connection underscores the point that as consumer goods become networked, they need reliable, simple connections to be accepted, Gage noted.
How Jini can help out
Jini, Sun's Java-based distributed computing software, is designed to make it easier for developers to build networks where any device can be represented as a software object, Gage said. Jini look-up services accomplish the task of linking devices to various geographically dispersed network services they need.
Jini-enabled devices incorporate a "stub" of less than 40 kilobytes of code, which communicates through another piece of code providing a look-up service on the network, to connect the device to various services, Sun officials have explained previously.
"What direction do we go...to get to something that's powerful, safe, and distributed where the number of connected devices are not a million or a hundred million but the numbers are in billions," Gage said. "Every air conditioner, every automobile will have intelligence in it," he said.
To demonstrate that manufacturers are actually buying into the concept, Sun officials will appear with manufacturing "partners" at a conference in New York in December and present demonstrations involving consumer electronics devices as well as automobile components, Gage said.
"We'll be here in December with our partners and talk about availability," he said.
Sun has ready in its labs a demonstration of a brake built by one manufacturer being controlled by an auto component built by another car maker.
Sun lines up Jini partners
Gage said that Quantum Corp., a hard-drive maker, and Seagate Software Inc., a backup software company, are writing Jini objects for their peripheral devices, but he did not specify major consumer electronic or automobile manufacturers. Sun executives have been roaming the globe to drum up support for Jini among manufacturers, and Joy was in Japan recently to enlist a range of companies there.
- See Rawn Shah's previous article in JavaWorld, "The skinny on JiniJini and JavaSpaces bring true distributed computing to Java" http://www.javaworld.com/jw-08-1998/jw-08-jini.txt
- Sun's Jini home page http://java.sun.com/products/jini/index.html
- Find out how Jini holds up to heavy-duty testing in "Will Jini grant Sun's wish?" http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-10-1998/jw-10-iw-jinitest.html
- JavaWorld recently ran "Sun opens Jini spec for reviewSun decides to spread the word to spark innovation" http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-10-1998/jw-10-idgns-jinispec.html
- "Sun opens Jini spec for review," and Sun targeting Japanese manufacturers with Jini," September 1998 news items in SunWorld http://www.sunworld.com/swol-09-1998/swol-09-sunspots.html
- "Sun to let Jini spec out of the bottle," July 1998 SunWorld news story http://www.sunworld.com/swol-07-1998/swol-07-jini.html
- "JavaOneSun to expand Java distributed computing effort," February 1998 news item on Jini and JavaSpaces in SunWorld http://www.sunworld.com/swol-02-1998/swol-02-sunspots.html#2
- "Sun's JavaSpaces is foundation for future on distributed systems," August 1997 news story in SunWorld http://www.sunworld.com/swol-08-1997/swol-08-javaspaces.html