Service Identification And Location

June 18, 2001

Universal Plug And Play Uses XML, SOAP, and HTTP Broadcast based Does not need locator service Universal Plug and Play (UPNP) supports discovery and control of devices...

William G. Wong

Universal Plug And Play

Uses XML, SOAP, and HTTP
Broadcast based
Does not need locator service

Universal Plug and Play (UPNP) supports discovery and control of devices by control points, such as a PC. It supports zero configuration with automatic discovery through the use of broadcasts when control points or devices are added. It also supports hierarchical devices and gateways to non-UPNP devices.

More information is available at www.upnp.org.

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Jini

Centralized locator service
Supports service management
Services can be started remotely
Incorporates a security model
Supports lease-based services
Two-phase commit transactions
Requires Java VM on all nodes

Jini, a Java-based architecture, supports distributed management of services. Services and their attributes are registered with the locator service. Clients then activate services directly.

More information is available at www.sun.com.

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OSGi Gateways

Gateway between standards-based and proprietary devices
Dynamic invocation of services
Works with standards-based clients
Requires Java VM on gateway

The Open Systems Gate-way Initiative (OSGi) provides a Java-based platform for ser-
vices, including those for linking proprietary devices to standards-based clients. A gateway also can provide access to services on a PDA, cell phone, PC, or other device.

One or more services are contained in bundles that execute in a bundle context. The OSGi framework in-cludes a number of standard services, such as a Web server and management services.

More information is available at www.osgi.org.

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About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.