The Hessian binary web service protocol is a powerful and easy-to-use alternative to RMI, XML/SOAP, and REST/JSON for remote communication. Learn how to integrate Spring and Hessian and then create Hessian components as simple Java objects.
by Jacek Furmankiewicz
August 21, 2009
he world of enterprise Java has an overwhelming array of choices for remoting: RMI, XML/SOAP, REST/JSON, etc. Each comes with its own industry-acknowledged strengths and weaknesses, such as complex setup (RMI) or performance overhead (XML/SOAP). A lesser known but very powerful and easy-to-use option is the Hessian binary web service protocol. The binary aspect of Hessian delivers excellent performance, and its native integration within Java allows you to expose remote services purely via a regular Java interface.
Hessian's most rewarding feature, though, is the ability to pass full Java POJO object graphs from one process to another easily without the overhead of XML marshalling, an unfortunate side effect of SOAP web services. Also, Hessian is implemented in a variety of different languages, so you theoretically can execute efficient binary remoting between Java and Python or Java and C# as well.
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he world of enterprise Java has an overwhelming array of choices for remoting: RMI, XML/SOAP, REST/JSON, etc. Each comes with its own industry-acknowledged strengths and weaknesses, such as complex setup (RMI) or performance overhead (XML/SOAP). A lesser known but very powerful and easy-to-use option is the 
