What has replaced JINI?

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java
jini

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236

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+3 Q:

What has replaced JINI?

It seems that JINI is pretty much an abandoned project. The latest release from the Jini.org site is from last year, and there has been no news since then.

JINI appears to be very useful to provide services in a completely distributed minor. What happened to this technology? Also what has replaced this technology?

The thread that I linked to claims that web services have replaced this technology. However, web services are strictly a client and server setup, not meant for dynamic distribution for jobs. [It can but it doesn't have the framework to do this] I find it difficult to believe that this technology just disappeared due to a lack of need.

I believe that this technology just disappeared due to a lack of need. On the simple end, web services take care of distributed needs. On the high performance end, clustering and networking with lower overhead takes care of most needs.

Scott Saunders 2009-11-03 02:59:34

Web services do not serve the purpose of distributing new jobs. RMI and .NET remoting do send binary objects over, however RMI is not made to handle the distribution of them to random machines. Web services creates a standard for clients and servers to communicate with each other Machine-to-Machine rather than Machine-to-Person

monksy 2009-11-03 03:06:10

+3 A:

Jini didn't fail due to a lack of need. There were problems with:

oppressive licensing when it was first released
all-Java solution based on RMI
complexity

By the time the licensing was sorted out it was too late. The moment had passed.

It's a brilliant idea, and Bill Joy's a genius, but like a lot of great technologies it simply didn't catch on. The marketplace didn't adopt it.

Jini didn't disappear. As you've noted, it's still available. The adoption rate hasn't been high because it isn't scratching anybody's itch.

duffymo 2009-11-03 03:01:05

I was wondering... is Jini what is now being referred to "Cloud computing"

monksy 2009-11-03 03:07:03

It;s an interesting thought, but I don't think they map that way. Cloud computing doesn't have any of Jini's self-discovery aspects, among other differences.

duffymo 2009-11-03 10:29:14

After reading up on the multicast discovery of services, I was quite happy. I really like the idea because it keeps the services local. You can't except an auto discovery of services outside your network without a yellowpages like approach. However, within the network it makes a lot of sense to do this. Shame I haven't seen this approach very often else where. I know its expensive but still..

monksy 2009-11-06 01:43:12

I think in a service-oriented architecture this would be the role of the UDDI registry. It's not as elegant as the discovery that Bill Joy envisioned. He imagined someone being able to broadcast a message like "I'd like a color laser printer with resolution X to announce itself, please." The service that best matched the requirements would send its "resume" over. The requester could accept or reject the service as they saw fit.

duffymo 2009-11-06 01:52:10

You can't have such of a service outside a local network. That is the limitation. The amount of applications broadcasting to such small group of people would overhelm all over the routers if it was allowed.

monksy 2009-11-06 17:37:22

+1 A:

From what I see the last Jini release actually was in October 2005 (Check here). What you maybe referring to is the news entry for the Rio project on the jini.org site I guess.

The wikipedia page on Jini tells us

Originally developed by Sun, responsibility for Jini is being transferred to Apache under the project name "River"

The latest release for Apache River (2.2.1) is from last year. There still seems to be some activity on the svn repository. So maybe not completely dead but also not very much alive too.

jitter 2009-11-03 03:10:54

I was referring to Rio, as that I completely discounted the existance of the official project.

monksy 2009-11-03 03:32:11

+1 A:

Web services becoming synonymous with SOA killed the buzz for Jini. Although Jini probably was a better fit for distributed computing as well as SOA at a intra-company/enterprise level, web services and the (highly misused) XML integration was pushed by the major software providers, primarily IBM. Of all the derivatives of RMI/Jini, Javaspaces seems to have survived somewhat. Rio was certainly a early version of Cloud computing, especially when it came to dynamic provisioning. I even wonder what happened to the promise of JXTA and it's co-existence with Jini.

I guess radio killed the TV star in this case :(

Thimmayya 2009-11-12 07:02:51

ansaurus

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What has replaced JINI?

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