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Jini technology, out of the box
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As the demo begins, one of these fellows breaks into a fair impersonation of Woody Allen while the other guy holds up a small beige box and says, "This is the lookup server." They then turn their attention to a nearby laptop. "This is a Jini technology-enabled laptop," one of them informs us. With a few key presses on the laptop, a screen shot appears on the large screen hanging above the stage. The screen is filled with what looks like a Web browser displaying a page that is split into two frames, both blank. "This is a Jini technology browser," we are told.
The two consultants then proceed to demonstrate the way in which Jini technology eases network administration by simplifying the addition and subtraction of devices to and from the network. They plug a Jini technology-enabled disk drive into the network. A few seconds later, a disk-drive icon labeled "Quantum Storage" appears in one of the browser frames. They then convince an audience member to plug a printer into the network. A few seconds later an icon labeled "Printer" appears in the browser. Next, they convince another audience member to plug a digital camera into the network. As expected, an icon for the camera appears.
The pair then demonstrate how Jini technology makes it easy for computers and devices hooked to the network to interact with each other. The Woody Allen impersonator clicks on the camera icon, which causes the camera's user interface to appear in the other frame of the browser. Through this user interface, Woody instructs the camera to take pictures of an unsuspecting audience member. One of these pictures is then sent to the printer, which prints it out slowly.
Throughout the demonstration, the presenters attempt to whip up the enthusiasm of the audience by dangling free baseball caps with the Java logo on them in front of the audience, promising them to the audience members most willing to yell out Sun's new marketing mantra: "Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime, on Anything." Jini technology looks really cool, but as the Woody Allen impersonator observes, "No technology will ever be as exciting as a free baseball cap."
Well, that depends on who you ask. Chief Jini technology architect Jim Waldo, who gave a talk Tuesday night at the NYJavaSIG meeting in the Jacob K. Javitz Convention Center, was very enthusiastic -- you might even say evangelistic -- about Jini technology. In his talk, Mr. Waldo explained why he thinks Jini software is a revolutionary, not evolutionary, technology. As he put it, "Jini technology is an attempt to change things very significantly. It's not just trying to wrap something around what already exists. It is trying to change fundamentally the architecture of computing systems."
What is Jini technology?
Jini technology enables the building and deployment of distributed systems that are organized as "federations of services." A federation is a set of services that can work together to perform a task. A service, the fundamental unit of a federation, is an entity that sits on the network ready to perform some kind of useful function. A service can be anything -- a hardware device, a piece of software, a communications channel, or even a human user. A Jini technology-enabled disk drive, for example, could offer a "storage service." Once a service becomes part of a federation, it then can be used by client programs, other services, or users.
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