I actually wrote a utility to help with this sort of thing recently (not for Jini) and it's somewhat easier than it used to be with a later JDK - so it might've been a tough job previously but should be relatively doable now. Might even make a good starter project for someone....
Jools wrote: >> The out-of-the box experience: IMHO, the real trouble is that Jini is a >> network technology and networks just aren't nice, a single machine can >> have a myriad of network interfaces, some of them with dynamic IP >> addresses, some of them registered in DNS, some of them supporting >> multicast etc. To address this problem requires agreeing on what a >> minimally acceptable environment might be, having a means to determine >> whether any given machine meets the necessary requirements and where it >> doesn't generate useful debugging information to assist in a fix. It >> also means deciding on what should be possible out of the box, chances >> are the more ambitious one is, the fewer machines there will be that >> satisfy the environmental needs by default. > > > Agreed. And this is the fundamental issue with Jini, we do expose some of > the more difficult issues when dealing with networks, but we should be > looking at guiding the user through the mire. > I recall a project starting a while back which would probe your system and > give you some advice in regards to how best to configure jini, not sure > where this is now..... > > However, once the hurdles are dealt with, users of the technology become > instant fans. > > But the initial curve is a bit steep. > > But the benefits are worth the investment. > > My team have just deployed a Rio based system, which provides Restful based > services, dynamic load balancing and deployment all using the Rio toolkit. > Getting up to speed with Rio was a breeze for the developers as Rio handled > all the nasty stuff most developers just want to leave to the admin staff, > and the admin staff can tune the rio system for their needs. > > So, getting back to the point. Jini is not the issue, IMHO. The how easy we > make it for the user, and how confident they'll be in the end result when > trying to convince management that it'll work. > > --Jools >
