Jini (), also called Apache River, is a
network architecture for the construction of
distributed systems in the form of modular co-operating services.
JavaSpaces is a part of the Jini.
Originally developed by
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
, Jini was released under the
Apache License 2.0. Responsibility for Jini has been transferred to
Apache
The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...
under the project name "River".
History
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
introduced Jini in July 1998.
In November 1998, Sun announced that there were some firms supporting Jini.
The Jini team at Sun has always stated that ''Jini'' is not an acronym.
Ken Arnold has joked that it means "Jini Is Not Initials", making it a
recursive anti-acronym, but it has always been just ''Jini''. The word 'jini' means "the devil" in
Swahili
Swahili may refer to:
* Swahili language, a Bantu language official in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes
* Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa
* Swahili culture
Swahili culture is the culture of ...
; this is borrowed from the
Arabic word for a mythological spirit, originated from the Latin ''genius'', which is also the origin of the English word '
genie'.
Jini provides the infrastructure for the Service-object-oriented architecture (SOOA).
Using a service
Locating services is done through a lookup service.
Services try to contact a lookup service (LUS), either by
unicast interaction, when it knows the actual location of the lookup service, or by dynamic
multicast discovery. The lookup service returns an object called the service registrar that can be used by services to register themselves so they can be found by clients. Clients can use the lookup service to retrieve a proxy object to the service; calls to the proxy translate the call to a service request, performs this request on the service, and returns the result to the client. This strategy is more convenient than
Java remote method invocation, which requires the client to know the location of the remote service in advance.
Limitations
Jini uses a lookup service to broker communication between the client and service. This appears to be a centralized model (though the communication between client and service can be seen as decentralized) that does not scale well to very large systems. However, the lookup service can be horizontally scaled by running multiple instances that listen to the same multicast group.
See also
*
Jim Waldo
Jim Waldo is an American computer scientist and the Chief Technology Officer of Harvard University. He is the Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Professor of Tec ...
, lead architect of Jini
*
Ken Arnold, one of the original Jini architects
* Juxtapose (
JXTA
JXTA (Juxtapose) was an open-source peer-to-peer protocol specification begun by Sun Microsystems in 2001. The JXTA protocols were defined as a set of XML messages which allow any device connected to a network to exchange messages and collabor ...
)
* SORCER (
SORCER
The service-oriented computing environment (SORCER) is a distributed computing platform implemented in Java. It allows writing network-programs (called "''exertions''") that operate on wrapped applications ( services) to spread across the network ...
)
*
Java Management Extensions (JMX)
*
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
*
Zero Configuration Networking
*
OSGi Alliance
*
Service Location Protocol
The Service Location Protocol (SLP, srvloc) is a service discovery protocol that allows computers and other devices to find services in a local area network without prior configuration. SLP has been designed to scale from small, unmanaged networks ...
*
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)
*
Devices Profile for Web Services (DPWS)
*
Tuple space
*
CORBA
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Jini
Java platform
Beta software
Software using the Apache license