[Opensim-dev] [Opensim-users] grid operation

Justin Clark-Casey jjustincc at googlemail.com
Thu Dec 11 14:23:36 UTC 2008


Kyle "G" wrote:
> Agree 100% Teravus! We do a free monthly "90 Minutes to OpenSim" class 
> on Microsoft Island SL and on our grid starting next month. You can fire 
> up a home sim from zero knowledge and connect to any grid out there.  I 
> do not use zip files or installers I force the class to learn SVN and 
> how to keep current or revert.  This class is immensely popular and has 
> spawned dozens of new OpenSim owners. I shudder to think of how long a 
> class would be for grid mode including installing MSSQL or MySQL. I am 
> planning this type of advanced class soon as well but to do both at once 
> is teacher suicide. I even have permanent slides on Microsoft Island in 
> SL to build your own standalone with links to resources. FYI Microsoft 
> has asked us for OpenSim capabilities in order to begin moving to 
> OpenSim grids in 2009. This is mostly due to the community they see 
> growing and are excited to be a part of.
> 
>  
> 
> Also for our own grid ReactionGrid we encourage sim owners and devs to 
> have a local home or office sim in standalone to experiment on. This way 
> they are not using our grid or a clients grid to test things. It also 
> serves as a local, disconnected workspace for when users are offline for 
> some time. Thanks to save-oar and save-xml2 we can allow for 
> disconnected development.  We also allow free connections to our grid 
> with approved, PG project. This way we can allow for underprivileged 
> users to join up from a home/office standalone and have this in place 
> now with many sims on our grid.
> 
>  
> 
> There are likely dozens more scenarios for standalone mode. It is 
> crucial we keep this mode alive and work to simplify it as the gateway 
> to more advanced adventures with OpenSim.
> 
>  
> 
> Hurumph to keeping it! (I am too old to use “+1”)

Nice to hear about your work Kyle - keep it up!

To be fair, I think that the argument is that we could replace the current standalone mode (which runs everything in a 
single process) with code that automatically starts all the different service processes 'under the hood'.  In theory, 
from the user's point of view there is no change at all - they still only need to start and manage a single process 
(OpenSim.exe).  This would still be able to handle SQLite - it's quite possible to run grid servers using sqlite today 
though you probably wouldn't want to, so this shouldn't be an issue.

The 'in theory' part is the reason I would personally like to see this demonstrated before thinking about it further 
(notwithstanding the issues raised by other people).  For instance, what happens if the user service process fails in 
this new standalone mode?  Is it enough to expect the user to look at the logs and see that it needs to be restarted, or 
should there be some mechanism for pinging the service and automatically restarting it if it goes down?  Also, there 
would arguably be a need to redirect stuff such as log output from independent services if we want to continue pushing 
all log information in 'standalone' to the console.


> 
>  
> 
> Kyle G
> 
> www.reactiongrid.com <http://www.reactiongrid.com>
> 
>  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de 
> [mailto:opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de] On Behalf Of Teravus Ovares
> Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 8:43 AM
> To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
> Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] [Opensim-users] grid operation
> 
>  
> 
> I'm definately +1 on keeping standalone mode.
> 
> It's that troublesome grid mode that really has to go!   haha.  Just
> 
> kidding on that second part.
> 
>  
> 
> Yeah, really, I never understood why a few people want to remove it.
> 
> It's a fast, convenient and free way to get a grid-in-a-box.     You
> 
> can make your cake and eat it too.
> 
>  
> 
> Best Regards
> 
>  
> 
> Teravus
> 
>  
> 
> On 12/11/08, Michael Wright <michaelwri22 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> 
>  > Corrected Version with some spelling mistakes fixed and other small 
> changes.
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > I agree, and if we make the code and interface more shared between
> 
>  > standalone mode and the Grid servers, then all the Grid server app 
> have to
> 
>  > be is minimum wrappers around the base classes. With them basically just
> 
>  > registering http handlers.
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > This allows there to a gradient between full standalone mode and full 
> Grid
> 
>  > mode. Different application are going to require different levels of
> 
>  > functions and embedded services.
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > With one application maybe requiring a embedded Grid and User server 
> in the
> 
>  > single instance but using external Inventory and Asset servers. And these
> 
>  > Inventory/asset servers could be shared with other applications/grids.
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > Also I think future work on hyper grid could improve these sort of
> 
>  > applications. Allowing applications that require minimum separate backend
> 
>  > support, but being part of a bigger hyper grid.
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > There are so many different applications/ case uses that we haven't 
> really
> 
>  > even started to think about yet, that I think it would be a massive 
> mistake
> 
>  > to make the distributed grid servers we have now, the only way of using
> 
>  > Opensim.
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > Michael Wright <michaelwri22 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> 
>  > I agree, and if we make the code and interface more shared between
> 
>  > standalone mode and the Grid servers, then all the Grid server app 
> have to
> 
>  > be is minimum wrappers around the base classes. With them basically just
> 
>  > requesting http handlers.
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > This allows there to a gradient between full standalone mode and full 
> Grid
> 
>  > mode. Different application are going to require different levels of
> 
>  > functions and embedding.
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > With one application maybe requiring a embedded Grid and User server 
> in the
> 
>  > single instance but using external Inventory and Asset servers. And these
> 
>  > Inventory/asset servers maybe could be shared with other 
> applications/grids.
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > Also I think future work on hyper grid can improve these sort of
> 
>  > applications. Applications requiring minimum backend support but 
> being part
> 
>  > of a bigger hyper grid.
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > There are so many different applications/ case uses that we haven't 
> really
> 
>  > even started to think about yet, that I think it would be a massic 
> mistake
> 
>  > to make the distributed grid servers we have now the only way of using
> 
>  > Opensim.
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > "Kyle \"G\"" <create at reactiongrid.com> wrote:
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > I have some ideas for embedded, disconnected apps, mobile in nature which
> 
>  > require a small embeddable DB and minimal footprint from OpenSim.  
> For this
> 
>  > reason we feel standalone mode is important and needed but for the 
> majority
> 
>  > of what we plan in 2009 HyperGrid is a revolution we are really happy 
> to see
> 
>  > as we would  love to be part of a bigger community of similar OpenSim 
> grids.
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > Kyle G
> 
>  > www.reactiongrid.com
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > From: opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de
> 
>  > [mailto:opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de] On Behalf Of
> 
>  > Michael Wright
> 
>  > Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 6:37 AM
> 
>  > To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
> 
>  > Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] [Opensim-users] grid operation
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > -1, I think standalone mode is a important feature, and will become more
> 
>  > important in the future
> 
>  > 
> 
>  >  I do think though, that we can do a lot more to cut down the code 
> paths and
> 
>  > make the grid services share code and interfaces better with 
> standalone mode
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > Ryan McDougall <sempuki1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>  > belated +1
> 
>  > 
> 
>  > On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 7:52 PM, Hurliman, John wrote:
> 
>  > > It seems to me that standalone mode could easily be replaced with a 
> small
> 
>  > C# app that launches all of the grid services with the proper 
> configuration.
> 
>  > This would reduce a lot of code paths.
> 
>  > >
> 
>  > > John
> 
>  > >
> 
>  > >> -----Original Message-----
> 
>  > >> From: opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de
> 
>  > [mailto:opensim-dev-
> 
>  > >> bounces at lists.berlios.de] On Behalf Of Stefan Andersson
> 
>  > >> Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 2:40 AM
> 
>  > >> To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de; opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
> 
>  > >> Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] [Opensim-users] grid operation
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >> Kyle,
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >>> I'm going to claim utter and absolute selfishness here and state that
> 
>  > >>> I cannot see any situation under which I would have only 1 location
> 
>  > >>> open in the 3D web.
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >> But others can and do - especially the out-of-the-box noob or the app
> 
>  > >> dev just wanting to throw up a region to test a module.
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >>> For the purpose of "easily getting things set up", standalone is all
> 
>  > >>> but useless in its initial state. It's certainly easier to get set
> 
>  > >>> up, but it's also much more limited.
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >> It has one glorious use : letting people get an instant taste of
> 
>  > >> OpenSim. That's probably what got us this far this fast.
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >>> Grid mode is perhaps a bit more difficult to set up -- but the
> 
>  > >>> default in the configuration file is for the Null storage plugin to
> 
>  > >>> be used under standalone mode. This makes things... difficult... when
> 
>  > >>> trying to explain how to get modifications to the environment saved.
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >> For region persistence, it's SQLite, not Null?
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >>> Because
> 
>  > >>> first, you have to explain how to configure the storage for the other
> 
>  > >>> modules (again, for standalone).
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >> I must admit I'm a bit confused as of what resources you mean need
> 
>  > >> configuration and extra set-up. Can you be more specific?
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >>> Also, I've been following the posts on the topic of the HyperGrid. I
> 
>  > >>> need more information on this: will it work for any of the minigrids
> 
>  > >>> to be in standalone mode when they try to connect with the HG? My gut
> 
>  > >>> feeling says no... and my reason for promoting grid over standalone
> 
>  > >>> is simply this: the HyperGrid is much closer to what the web is --
> 
>  > >>> multiple administrative domains that all work together to pass
> 
>  > >>> traffic between them. I don't view HG as being the final evolution,
> 
>  > >>> but I do view it as being a very good start.
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >> Definitively - HG is a major step along the very lines we've been
> 
>  > >> envisioning since the very beginning - when we first started using the
> 
>  > >> phrase "3D Web". Let's not forget the "friendly teleports" region
> 
>  > >> handle hacks of old. This is all building one step at a time, towards
> 
>  > >> a golden future. The project has come a long way in only two years.
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >> And I'm pretty confident that there's even more magical stuff brewing
> 
>  > >> on private hard drives and in corporate offices. :D
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >>> (And thank you, as always, for your time. :))
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >> And thank you for yours, Kyle!
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > >> /Stefan
> 
>  > >>
> 
>  > > _______________________________________________
> 
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> 
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> 
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> 
>  > >
> 
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justincc
Justin Clark-Casey
http://justincc.wordpress.com



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