Professional Jini (Programmer to Programmer) [Paperback]

Sing Li (Author), Mile Burmeijer (Author), Jerome Scheuring (Author)

Book Description

Series: Programmer to Programmer | Publication Date: August 2000

Jini is a networking protocol from Sun that sits on top of Java. It allows devices to interact together without having to worry about drivers, different operating systems or complicated cabling. Devices connect to a network and offer services to other devices. A huge range of devices have the potential to be connected to networks using Jini; anything from computers and printers to televisions and air-conditioners. The idea is to allow devices to interact simply with each other, e.g. your repair-service network can connect directly to your broken refrigerator via the telephone to diagnose the fault.

JavaSpaces is a related technology, built to show a practical application of Jini. A JavaSpace is a really simple interface which allows remote systems to collaborate via what is essentially a notice board. Java programs place objects, examine objects, or take objects away from this board. They can also ask to be notified when the object they're looking for appears on the board. As an example, a word-processor application could place a fax job on the notice board, which a fax application would find and perform as and when it was free. The two applications don't need to know anything about each other's location, only what objects they handle.

Professional Jini Programming presents in one single volume everything that an advanced Java programmer will need to start designing and programming with Jini or JavaSpaces technology.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This book is for intermediate-to-advanced Java developers who are interested in the latest trends in network technology and the advanced distributed computing models enabled by Jini. Assuming a working knowledge of Java but no prior knowledge of Jini, the book begins with the underlying layer of sockets, Java's Remote Method Invocation (RMI) and Activatable Services - essential to an understanding of Jini - followed by a discussion of distributed computing, including a coverage of CORBA as a complementary technology to Jini. In the main body, we have an in-depth, comprehensive coverage of Jini (1.1) and the self-healing, dynamic, reliable, scalable, spontaneous, and evolutionary network it enables. Architectural level examination and detailed code samples are presented, covering the discovery and join protocols, lookup services and entries, events, leases, transactions, all Jini 1.1 helper utilities and services, and JavaSpaces as a Jini service. We explore the latest specifications from the Jini community, including ServiceUI and the Surrogate architecture, as well as Jini's role in supporting network-based devices. In the third section, pragmatic real-world applications of Jini and JavaSpaces technology are introduced by pioneering developers and companies: projects include secured remote medical record access, digital profiling, distributed collaborative team interactions, an in-car trip support system, and applied distributed agent technology. Each of these studies includes a description of their design, how Jini was applied productively, code samples and a discussion of the implementation issues encountered. A set of appendices, illustrating the latest syntax of Jini helpers, services, related tools and technologies round off the book.

"Jini means much more than your refrigerator talking to your toaster", and this book sends the message loud and clear. The book will show exactly how you can use Jini to create software services in a highly scalable and robust environment, enabling the functionality to be delivered despite network or service disruption anywhere in the network. Whether you are simply curious about Jini connection technology, or actually need to implement it today and want to learn from the experiences of current Jini developers and successful deployments, this is the book for you.

About the Author

Sing is an active author, consultant, and entrepreneur. He has written for popular technical journals and is the creator of the "Internet Global Phone", one of the very first Internet phones available. His wide-ranging consulting expertise spans Internet and Intranet systems design, distributed architectures, digital convergence, embedded systems, real-time technologies, and cross platform software design. He is also an active participant in the Jini community.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1000 pages
• Publisher: Wrox Press (August 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861003552
• ISBN-13: 978-1861003553
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,828,633 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jini development through example and application, September 29, 2000

By 

Ben Beitler (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Professional Jini (Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

Unlike some other reference style books for Jini, this book seeks to support the development of Jini applications by being firmly directed at programmers with an unashamedly practical approach. Not only does it provide adequate coverage of the key concepts and issues involved, but it leads the reader through the details of systems development through extensive and very specific code examples. In this way, devevlopers can review and understand Jini by example, and borrow from the structures presented.

While the core of the book is firmly focussed on Jini technology (and the related JavaSpaces) together with the development utilities and tools that surround it, the complete picture is provided by two other sections that start and end the book.

First, there is an extensive discussion of Java and related networking technologies. This is important in order to situate the discussion of Jini itself and understand its position in the broader computing field. In particular, RMI and CORBA are introduced at the start to provide a context, and to show how they complement Jini on the one hand, and can be used with it on the other. This is very good if your familiarity with these is limited.

Second, the final section contains several application descriptions that show both the kind of applications that might be constructed with Jini, and how the power of Jini can be used in effective and novel ways. These chapters are written by people actually involved in Jini systems development, and describe real systems rather than toy educational examples. Specially interesting to me was the Paradigma agent framework, itself opening up an interesting set of possibilities for further development.

In summary, the book covers background and complementary material, Jini fundamentals and case-studies, all in one coherent whole. Backed up with real code examples throughout, it is an excellent place to start both for the Jini developer and also for those seeking a good source of information on Jini and related technologies. Perhaps most interesting, however, is the variety of illuminating applications that provide a valuable source of ideas and inspiration.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough uptodate intro to Jini with advanced examples, September 14, 2000

By 

BB User (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Professional Jini (Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

I had the pleasure of reading Sing Li's Pro Jini as a technical reviewer for Wrox press. The book provides a thorough introduction to the Jini system architecture and Sun's reference implementation. Coverage is uptodate with the latest Jini 1.1 API specification and reference implementation from Sun, including all the new Jini helper utilities and services. What further sets this book apart from other Jini offerings is the inclusion of solutions to practical Jini deployment issues. For example, the book discusses extensively the issues arising from deploying Jini in a firewalled environment, and presents examples for securing Jini using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) communication. Relevant Java technologies such as RMI and object serialization are also clearly introduced early on. The appendices complement Sun's documentation by presenting the Jini APIs and reference services while highlighting common pitfalls. Overall this is an excellent tutorial and reference that will enable programmers to quickly get up and running with Jini and then lead them on to advanced Jini programming issues.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A complete, detailed, well-written book, September 4, 2001

By 

Colin D. Bennett (Spokane, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Professional Jini (Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

Mr. Li starts out with a section focusing on advanced RMI and CORBA, and how they relate to Jini. The CORBA section includes examples for building a Java client/server using the ORB that comes with the JDK, as well as using a C client on Linux with the free ORBit ORB. An excellent overview of CORBA for people who have never used it or simply haven't used it with Java.

His writing is detailed, explaining how things are done and why they're done that way; after reading this book you will have an excellent understanding of Jini. For example, the detailed discussion and the several examples on UDP multicast and how it is used in the Discovery protocol was quite fascinating. I found the case study chapters, accounts of real-life applications of Jini and JavaSpaces, to be very interesting to read as well.

Overall, an inforative, highly readable book aimed at advanced developers.