The Java Remote Method Invocation (Java RMI) is a Java API that performs the object-oriented equivalent of remote procedure calls (RPC), with support for direct transfer of serialized Java classes and distributed garbage collection. Remote Method Invocation (RMI) can also be seen as the process of activating a method on a remotely running object. RMI offers location transparency because a user feels that a method is executed on a locally running object. Check some RMI Tips here.
The RMI architecture is based on a very important principle which states that the definition of the behavior and the implementation of that behavior, are separate concepts. RMI allows the code that defines the behavior and the code that implements the behavior to remain separate and to run on separate JVMs.
The RMI architecture consists of the following layers:
The Remote interface serves to identify interfaces whose methods may be invoked from a non-local virtual machine. Any object that is a remote object must directly or indirectly implement this interface. A class that implements a remote interface should declare the remote interfaces being implemented, define the constructor for each remote object and provide an implementation for each remote method in all remote interfaces.
The java.rmi.Naming class provides methods for storing and obtaining references to remote objects in the remote object registry. Each method of the Naming class takes as one of its arguments a name that is a String in URL format.
Binding is the process of associating or registering a name for a remote object, which can be used at a later time, in order to look up that remote object. A remote object can be associated with a name using the bind or rebind methods of the Naming class.
The bind method bind is responsible for binding the specified name to a remote object, while the rebind method is responsible for rebinding the specified name to a new remote object. In case a binding exists for that name, the binding is replaced.
The following steps must be involved in order for a RMI program to work properly:
A stub for a remote object acts as a client’s local representative or proxy for the remote object. The caller invokes a method on the local stub, which is responsible for executing the method on the remote object. When a stub’s method is invoked, it undergoes the following steps:
DGC stands for Distributed Garbage Collection. Remote Method Invocation (RMI) uses DGC for automatic garbage collection. Since RMI involves remote object references across JVM’s, garbage collection can be quite difficult. DGC uses a reference counting algorithm to provide automatic memory management for remote objects.
RMISecurityManager provides a security manager that can be used by RMI applications, which use downloaded code. The class loader of RMI will not download any classes from remote locations, if the security manager has not been set.
When an application wants to pass its memory objects across a network to another host or persist it to storage, the in-memory representation must be converted to a suitable format. This process is called marshalling and the revert operation is called demarshalling.
Java provides a mechanism, called object serialization where an object can be represented as a sequence of bytes and includes the object’s data, as well as information about the object’s type, and the types of data stored in the object. Thus, serialization can be seen as a way of flattening objects, in order to be stored on disk, and later, read back and reconstituted. Deserialisation is the reverse process of converting an object from its flattened state to a live object.