JXTA for Not Yet Techies

"Computer Careers: Using This Technology for Helping People Connect and Communicate Directly Over Peer to Peer Networks"

by Richard Stooker, President Info Ring Press and author of Secrets of Changing to a Computer Career

JXTA is short for "juxtapose" and is a set of protocols, not an API, that can define peer to peer or P2P networks. Sun Microsystems announced JXTA in February 2001 because it was developed by Bill Joy.

JXTA is a set of protocols that make deployment of applications and services among a continually changing group of users and devices. That's what a P2P network is, which is quite different from the standard client/server networks we're accustomed to.

Peer to peer networks include instant messaging applications and file sharing programs, and future applications enabled by JXTA could include something as simple as a group of businessmen using their PDAs to find each other in a mall and deciding to meet for drinks at a certain bar.

P2P networks have:

Scalability
Robustness
Spontaneity
Dynamic behavior
Fault Resistance
Self-organization

JXTA is a common platform for network and language-independent networks

It is layered on top of other network protocols.

It is open source, and developed by Sun Microsystems with open source developers.

The primary mechanism is the pipe, connecting peers. They conduct advertisements, which are XML documents announcing the presence of resources. Discovery is the process of locating peers and resources.

The six JXTA protocols are:

Core:
- Peer Endpoint Protocol - PEP
- Peer Resolver Protocol -- PRP
Standard Services:
- Peer Discovery Protocol -- PDP
- Rendezvous Protocol -- RVP
- Peer Information Protocol -- PIP
- Pipe Binding Protocol -- PBP

These are the JXTA basics.

Next: Jython

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