Sams Teach Yourself J2EE™ in 21 Days

Why Use a Naming Service?

Naming Services provide an indispensable mechanism for de-coupling the provider of a service from the consumer of the service. Naming services allow a supplier of a service to register their service against a name. Users, or clients, of the service need only know the name of the service to use it.

Think of the phone book once more, and how difficult it would be to find someone's phone number without the phone book. Obtaining your friend's phone number means going to their home and asking, or waiting until you meet up with them again—which may be difficult to organize because you can't phone them to arrange the meeting.

The phone book is a directory service. In fact, a phone book is often referred to as a phone directory. ...