Re: [DotGNU]Re: Network SEE architecture, v2.0.1

[Eric Altendorf]

On Tuesday 08 October 2002 12:56, Stephen Compall wrote:
> Hi Chris. Before starting, I'd just like to point everyone to some
> history: I asked about the VRS & SEE projects connectedness, and

Thanks for the history.  Those are emails I had not yet read.


> > Requires identification        Y        Y
>
> It requires identification of the server, but not the client. Right
> now. Crazy huh? ;) Maybe if the auth people define their
> interoperable protocol, I can drop seeauth in.

In VRS, servers (LDS nodes) have to authenticate to each other for 
inter-VRS communication.  Exported web services may, of course, 
require whatever authentication is necessary (maybe none) for the 
business logic of the web service.  Identifying/authenticating the 
server to the client (to prevent spoofing) is a very good point, and 
I'm not sure if we have talked about that yet.  Definitely a good 
idea.


> I don't know exactly what you mean by "well-defined internal
> messaging API." 

I think he just means that the various LDS nodes in the VRS have 
Goldwater available as a message-passing middleware.  We haven't 
actually defined the VRS API that the nodes will use to talk to each 
other yet (eg: "Hi, I'm node foo, let me join the cluster", "hi node 
foo, we have an updated version of file bar in the shared repository 
you should sync with", etc.)  And I'm not sure what all of this has 
to do with VRS vs. SEE.  :*)


> There is also an important difference between the SEE and VRS: to
> operate correctly, the SEE must be installed on both client and
> server machines. Not all the see*ports and see*users need run, but
> the SEE must be there.

Hmmm, this is something I may need to re-research.  Why is this 
necessary?  For example, if you have a webservice that serves a 
witty-quote-of-the-minute in HTML over HTTP, would it not be possible 
to run that webservice in a SEE and have a non-SEE client get the 
witty quote with a standard web browser?  I must be missing a very 
basic assumption of the SEE...


> However, this is not true of VRS, at least as far as I can gather
> from the name. A Virtual Remote Server should, IMHO, look just like
> a regular, single-machine service to the user. Maybe more machines
> hosting it though ;)

Yes, that's the idea.

Thanks again...I wanna keep this conversation going. ;-)

eric

PS: Sorry for my incoherency, I'm writing this at a late hour....
-- 
"First they ignore you.  Then they laugh at you.
 Then they fight you.  And then you win."             -Gandhi