jnetrobust

Fast, reliable & non-intrusive message-oriented virtual network protocol for Java 6+.
Currently in alpha.

What is it?

JNetRobust is a virtual network protocol that resides between the transport and the application layer.

Benefits

• reliability of transmitted data
  counters network characteristics like out-of-order delivery, package loss, package duplication
• received, unvalidated data is available immediately
  this is different from TCP, as TCP provides you the data only after it can guarantee in-order delivery
• the package is bigger than UDP's package, but smaller than TCP's package
• avoids some pitfalls of using UDP & TCP together
  simultaneous UDP & TCP traffic may lead to increased packet loss

Caveats

• no flow control
• currently no congestion control
  future releases may include this feature

Why should I use it?

If you don't need reliability, use UDP.
If you need reliability and you can wait for it to be validated, use TCP.
If you need reliability, but you benefit from receiving unvalidated data with no latency, try JNetRobust.

How do I use it?

It is a library and imposes no restrictions on how you use it:

• the protocol maintains an internal state, that is updated every time you use it
• the protocol just adds/removes metadata to/from your original data
• you decide what to do with the metadata-packaged data (e.g. add some of your own metadata, etc... )
• you decide how you want to serialize the metadata-packaged data (e.g. with default serialization, Kryo, etc... )
• you decide how you want to send the metadata-packaged data (e.g. plain DatagramSocket, newer NIO DatagramChannel or even network frameworks like Apache MINA)

You can use the reference implementation which glues all those pieces together to get started; an example is listed below.

Refer to the Wiki pages for additional information!

Talk is cheap. Show me the code. [1]

Here is a minimal, complete example of using the provided reference implementation:
Code

public class BidirectionalMain {
    public static void main (String[] args) throws Exception {
        String receivedMessage;

        // host addresses
        InetSocketAddress ADDRESS_A = new InetSocketAddress(InetAddress.getLocalHost(), 12345);
        InetSocketAddress ADDRESS_B = new InetSocketAddress(InetAddress.getLocalHost(), 12346);

        // setup ProtocolHosts using the host's local address and registering all serialization dataTypes
        // ProtocolHost supports multiplexing between different peers using respective topicId, remote address and dataType

        ProtocolHost protocolHostA = new ProtocolHost("A", ADDRESS_A, String.class);
        ProtocolHandle<String> protocolHandleA = protocolHostA.register(Byte.MIN_VALUE, ADDRESS_B);

        ProtocolHost protocolHostB = new ProtocolHost("B", ADDRESS_B, String.class);
        ProtocolHandle<String> protocolHandleB = protocolHostB.register(Byte.MIN_VALUE, ADDRESS_A);


        // send from A
        protocolHandleA.send(Arrays.asList("Hi!", "How you doing?"));

        System.out.println();
        Thread.sleep(100);

        // receive at B
        while ((receivedMessage = protocolHandleB.receive()) != null) {
            System.out.println("<B>t"+receivedMessage);
        }

        // send from B
        protocolHandleB.send("Howdy! Fine, thanks.");

        System.out.println();
        Thread.sleep(100);

        // receive at A
        while ((receivedMessage = protocolHandleA.receive()) != null) {
            System.out.println("<A>t"+receivedMessage);
        }
    }
}

Console Output

[A]: Data sent                      -32767    Hi!
[A]: Data sent                      -32766    How you doing?

[B]: Data received ordered          -32767    Hi!
[B]: Data received                  -32767    Hi!
[B]: Data received ordered          -32766    How you doing?
[B]: Data received                  -32766    How you doing?
[B]: Newest data received           -32766    How you doing?
<B> Hi!
<B> How you doing?
[B]: Data sent                      -32767    Howdy! Fine, thanks.

[A]: Data was received at other end -32767    Hi!
[A]: Data was received at other end -32766    How you doing?
[A]: Data received ordered          -32767    Howdy! Fine, thanks.
[A]: Data received                  -32767    Howdy! Fine, thanks.
[A]: Newest data received           -32767    Howdy! Fine, thanks.
<A> Howdy! Fine, thanks.

Where can I download the binaries, sources and javadoc?

Maven

<!-- JNetRobust library; mandatory -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.github.mucaho</groupId>
    <artifactId>jnetrobust-core</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.2</version>
</dependency>

<!-- JNetRobust examples; optional -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.github.mucaho</groupId>
    <artifactId>jnetrobust-samples</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.2</version>
</dependency>

Manual setup
You can download the jars from the release section and import them to your classpath.

Where can I browse the javadoc?

You can read the docs on JNetRobusts's IO page.

Misc

Open issues and/or open pull requests. Suggestions, bug reports, code improvements and additional features are very welcome!

Copyright (c) 2014 mucaho.
MPL 2.0. Read short explanation. I would like to encourage contributing to this original repository via pull requests, if you made any modifications.