A Generic Architecture to Control Jini Services over the Internet

Abstract

Distributed computer systems have brought many advantages over traditional centralised systems. However these systems have innate complications such as partial failure, lack of system wide knowledge, concurrency etc. Programming environments for these systems have typically been few and have often failed to adequately address, or even ignored, the associated complications of distributed systems. Sun MicroSystems? Jini technology [Jini Spec `99] is a new distributed systems programming technology where programmers write software as Jini services. It provides the mechanisms by which programmers can try to manage these distributed systems complications. This dissertation aims to address three issues currently restricting the widespread adoption of Jini technology. ? Firstly, the usage of Jini has initially been restricted to Local Area Network (LAN) environments. This thesis addresses this issue by describing a generic architecture to allow Jini services to be accessed and controlled over the Internet. ? Secondly, the core Jini technology installation files necessitate over 3MB of memory, thus impeding Jini services on devices of limited memory capacity. This thesis investigates how Jini services can include devices of limited memory capability and describes the implementation of such a service. ? Finally, the implementation of a Jini client for a specific service currently necessitates providing the client with information about the service in advance. This is a significant restriction on Jini technology in that each service writer must provide its own client implementation for that service. This thesis describes and implements a method by which clients can control Jini services without any knowledge of them, thus providing a single Jini client to all services.ons