Reaching out to the cell phone with Jini

Jini has made considerable inroads as an enterprise computing platform, but it hasn´t fulfilled its promise as an ubiquitous computing platform for thin clients. A roadblock has been that full participation in a Jini community requires devices to support a fully capable Java virtual machine, something that is a challenge for mobile devices (e.g., cellphones). The Jini Surrogate specification aims to provide a service gateway that enables limited Java devices to hook into a Jini network, eliminating the need for Jini on the device. The paper describes the Jini Surrogate Architecture, its benefits in enabling wireless access to Jini services, and the implementation and performance issues uncovered in implementing surrogate-based services. The paper discusses several application architectures that can leverage the surrogate approach. These include exporting enterprise services from the wired Internet to the wireless Internet, and enabling a thin-client mobile agent platform that implements migratory services. These application architectures are being further explored as part of the Arches project.