Summary

JavaSpaces provides a compelling model for distributed P2P communication. The JavaSpaces API is very simple. All operations are invoked on an object that implements the JavaSpace interface. read, write, take, notify, and snapshot comprise the entire JavaSpace API. This simple yet extremely powerful API helps in developing distributed applications because much of the complexity is implemented by the service.

JavaSpaces is built using distributed data structures, which enable multiple processes to access and manipulate the content of a structure in parallel. Distributed data structures offer a number of advantages to traditional database processing by enabling multiple processes to access and change information concurrently.

One of the concepts introduced in Jini is the concept of resource leasing, which has direct implications on the programming model used and the services that must be implemented to support and manage a Jini network. The Jini network is often referred to as "self-healing," as it grooms the service environment without the need for human intervention.

JavaSpaces provides a distributed shared-memory that can be used to build rendezvous peers to assist in community formation and management.