RMI without Application Server

[djeang]

My application use a rich client (swing) accessing remote buisness objects. As i want to apply YAGNI principle, i wonder if i need an appserver to remote my buisness objects.
Does a standalone application (using Spring) for the server side, registering objects to the RMI server provided with JDK will scale well ?
Does the app server provide an enhanced RMI server ?
Does an hessian/burlap solution is significantly slower than a SLSB solution ?

[Alef Arendsen]

Does a standalone application (using Spring) for the server side, registering objects to the RMI server provided with JDK will scale well?
Does the app server provide an enhanced RMI server ?

There is no difference between exposing business objects in a standalone application (server) or an full-fledged application server when using plain rmi, except for a possibly different RMI implementation. I don't think using an application server offers you much value here. Of course exceptional situation (OutOfMemoryErrors, stuff like that) might be handled better by more robust servers (some servers discard the VM and start a new one for example) and implementing this yourself is a hassle...

Does an hessian/burlap solution is significantly slower than a SLSB solution ?

No, it's the other way around!! Hessian/Burlap is significantly FASTER than stateless session beans, just as plain RMI and Spring's HttpInvokers. Best-case scenario, SLSB are equally fast as RMI/Hessian/Burlap/HttpInvokers.

regards,
Alef Arendsen