resin_® Hessian Features and Benefits

Hessian is a fast, compact, binary protocol that not only outperforms XML-based remoting protocols like SOAP and XML-RPC but also meets or exceeds the performance of other binary protocols like ORMI and Java JNI. Numerous third-party benchmarks have confirmed that Hessian is a great choice when looking for a high performance remoting and serialization protocol. Enterprises and creators of frameworks have chosen Hessian because their own tests reveal that its performance exceeds their expectations.

Hessian has implementations available for many languages including Java, Flash/Flex, Python, Ruby, and more. Hessian is a simple, but powerful protocol that is able to do virtually everything other web services protocols can do without all the baggage. Its simplicity also makes it easy for applications written in different languages to talk to each other using web services. As a binary, self-contained protocol, Hessian doesn't require XML or other support libraries that often cause headaches for developers.

As a small library, Hessian integrates easily with many frameworks. Spring includes Hessian as one of its remoting protocols. The Apache Cayenne, an Object Relational Mapping, Persistence and Caching for Java, uses Hessian to communicate objects between client and server. These projects and others take advantage of the easy integration that Hessian offers. For creators of frameworks looking for a remoting or serialization protocol, Hessian is a great choice.

Hessian has been used for years in numerous enterprise applications both through Caucho's reference implementation and via the Spring framework. The enterprises that use Hessian as their remoting or serialization protocol originally do so because it is so easy to set up and has low overhead. They continue to use it because it is incredibly stable and is virtually problem-free during the lifetime of the application.

Hessian is a highly versatile protocol because of its elegance and simplicity. It is robust enough to be used in enterprise web service applications, but light enough to be used in clients for Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). More over, such clients can connect to the enterprise class web services without modification. With an implementation in Java that has been used in many different high-level service deployments and an increasingly popular Flex/Flash implementation, Hessian can be placed anywhere in the enterprise or on clients.

See hessian.caucho.com for more information about Hessian.