Jini in a heterogeneous environment

Ths project is probably more of an engineering project than a research one.

Jini is designed to work in a Java-based environment. Within that, it contains mechanisms to register services, search for them and utilise them. Services outside of this environment are referred to condescingly as ``legacy'' services, and should be wrapped up in Java proxies. This is short-sighted:

Many services and search mechanisms exist outside of Jini. Examples are: the range of software services typically available via TCP/IP (such as NFS); CORBA traders; ActiveX controls; Chai interfaces to HP equipment.
Current wrappers for such services are ad-hoc one-off wrappers.

Opportunities exist for DSTC to produce software in this area, to act as well-engineered bridges between disparate service mechanisms.

Possibilities include

A generic wrapper around ActiveX controls. This would include mechanisms to extract control information and provide this in a suitable Java form. Control events would also need to be handled
Building a lookup locator as a CORBA trader. This would allow a bridge between the two trader mechanisms
Building bridges between Chai and BlueTooth

The result would be software produced by DSTC with high desirability by the non-Jini communities wishing to use Jini, and vice-versa. It would also allow the DSTC to build demonstrator systems for heterogeneous service environments.

Jan Newmarch (http://pandonia.canberra.edu.au)