Jini is a technology developed by Sun to facilitate the set-up, integration, dynamic configuration and management of distributed service-based applications. Since 1999 it has been refined and successfully applied for demanding and diverse applications such as mission-critical online financial services and tactical battle-field support systems by the U.S. Army. These lean heavily on Jini's 'self-healing' capabilities: systems can be dynamically brought down and up again, added to or replaced and the whole dynamically configures and reconfigures itself accordingly. It is clear that implementing eLearning will require the integration of multiple new and existing systems that will change and evolve over time and these will need to be robust and easy to manage. Thus Jini, or systems with Jini-like properties, will have a crucial role to play in the future evolution of MLEs.

Jini works by dynamically providing service 'proxies' to clients. The client has to talk to the proxy through a pre-agreed Java API. The proxy then talks to its service using a privately agreed protocol. The proxy thus 'hides' the service's protocol from the application, but there does need to be an pre- agreed specification for the API for each service. This is precisely what the MIT OKI project has produced with its Open Service Interface Definitions (OSIDs) as the service specifications 'glue' for the OKI framework for eLearning infrastructures.