Java Network Programming (3rd ed) [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Chapter 18. Remote Method Invocation

Historically,
networking has been concerned
with two fundamental applications. The first application is moving
files and data between hosts and is handled by FTP, SMTP, HTTP, NFS,
IMAP, POP, and many other protocols. The second application is
allowing one host to run programs on another host. This is the
traditional province of Telnet, rlogin, Remote Procedure Call (RPC),
and a lot of database middleware. Most of this book has implicitly
concerned itself with file and data transfer. Remote Method Invocation
(RMI), however, is an example of the second application for
networking: running a program on a remote host from a local machine.

RMI is a core Java API and class library that allows Java programs
running in one Java virtual machine to call methods in objects
running in a different virtual machine, even when the two virtual
machines are running on physically separate hosts. In essence, parts
of a single Java program run on a local computer while other parts of
the same program run on a remote host. RMI creates the illusion that
this distributed program is running on one system with one memory
space holding all the code and data used on either side of the actual
physical connection.