[Pipet Devel] Choice of ORB implementations

[J.W. Bizzaro]

Brad Chapman wrote:
> 
>     We definately need to work out how this should work, but I'm still
> gunning for having stored loci have a tag that reflects their group,
> and then have another storage file that associates remote logins with
> groups. This is analagous to the unix filesystem, but doesn't use it,
> because I feel like then the vsh user will have to configure their
> local filesystem outside of a running vsh implementation, while the
> other way will allow this configuration within a vsh (as an extension
> of your development environment idea). We could also tie the vsh
> development environment with assigning groups in the local filesystem,
> but it seems like we are abusing the meanings of groups to make them
> extend to remote users. Isn't all the unix group and permission stuff
> meant for configuring a local environment, and not a remote one?

You're right that the Unix authentication and file systems cannot manage a
distributed system like ours.

>     I've been reading into this more. I don't think the naming service
> will work for a distributed pseudo-filesystem. Although it is
> organized in a tree-like structure like the filesystem, it is meant
> for publishing corba objects. Each subnet or node that is available on
> a computer will not be a different corba object, but rather will be
> represented as XML, so we can't publish these objects in a naming
> service (or any other service for that matter). This is why I think
> the way things should work is that the naming service is used to
> locate remote hosts (like dns) and then you should query them to see
> the full list of nodes that are available.

I while ago I mentioned JungleMonkey:

    http://www.junglemonkey.net/

I think it is a distributed filesystem like Napster (I know little about
Napster).  I'd like us to take a VERY SERIOUS look into making a Napster-like
system.  We can set up a central server at The Open Lab that can register
every node in every VSh system on the Internet.  What do you think?

>     In addition to this, we could also utilize the trading service,
> which publishes objects by description (rather than by name). So a vsh
> instance could publish their connection object, and then associate
> the description of the object with the publically available nodes
> (along with other information about the computer such as processing
> power, etc.). Then a user could search for a particular subnet or node
> (a particular program) and find out where it is available.

Perhaps a bit like Napster.  I like the idea of cumputers being registered for
power, etc.

>     So, stealing some analogies from the corba documentation, our
> naming service would be like the white pages, where you can find other
> computers by their known name, and the trading service would be like
> the yellow pages, where you can look up the computers by the services
> they offer.

It still would require a central registry, like DNS and.....hmmmm.....could it
be....NAPSTER?! :-)

>     I know this isn't your vision for how things should work, but
> seems to implement the same ideas, only using already designed corba
> services.

You know more about the services CORBA can offer.

Actually, what you described is more like an earlier vision I had for Loci,
where there was a central 'hub' for locating loci.

Jeff
-- 
                      +----------------------------------+
                      |           J.W. Bizzaro           |
                      |                                  |
                      | http://bioinformatics.org/~jeff/ |
                      |                                  |
                      |        BIOINFORMATICS.ORG        |
                      |           The Open Lab           |
                      |                                  |
                      |    http://bioinformatics.org/    |
                      +----------------------------------+