Serialization in Java

From StackOverflow,

The process to convert an object instance, into a sequence of bytes ( which may be binary or not depends on the implementation ) . It is very useful when you want to transmit one object data across the network, for instance from one JVM to another.

How else is data stored otherwise, if not in bytes?

Some detailed implementation here : http://www.javacodegeeks.com/2013/03/serialization-in-java.html