Introduction What is RMI Overview: Structure: The Distributed Calculator: A Simple Example Goal Code How It Was Compiled Screen Captures The Calculator As An Applet Scaling Up: Enterprise Concerns Scaling the Calculator RMI Future

Scaling the Calculcator by Bill Murray The next logical step in the development of the Distributed Calculator was to change the servers so that they could be started by a call from the client. The first step is to rewrite the server interface so that it includes an activatable class. There are 4 contructors for the activatable classes: two that function by starting an instance of the server when it is registered such that the server can be restarted should it end normally, have its VM crash or if a network connection fails. The other function by only registering the server without starting an instance of the server. The coding is fairly straight-forward. Next the interface must define an activation group for the server. The activation group specifies the servername and the url codebase where the class resides. The activation group is then registered in an activation registry. For puposes of this example, I attempted to modify the addition server so that it could be reactivated. I was able to successfully compile the code but I was unable complete the activation registration (the VM would lock up at that instruction). As with most things in life, the theory always seems easier.