[Opensim-dev] The essence of "grid"

[Diva Canto]

Stefan Andersson wrote:
> I propose the entity "Resource Services": A set of zero or more services 
> serving resources for regions. Resources include:  assets, user 
> accounts, and assorted services like lookup services,  forums, etc.

Good.

> Am I correct in assuming that the hypergrid then boils down to the 
> "untrusted" connections? What is left, basically.

Well, not quite. Given that a grid can contain several trust domains, 
there may be untrusted connections even within a grid. For example, 
Wright Plaza should not trust DNCH, even though they are part of the 
same grid.  Even if DNCH signs an agreement with OSGrid that it will 
leave the central databases alone, DNCH may still harrass its neighbors. 
Very specifically, Wright Plaza should not trust agents sent to it by 
DNCH, it should be very very suspicious that those are spoofing, because 
they probably are... (given that I'm using it to test security :-)

So I think the Hypergrid boils down to connections between sims in 
different sets of resource services, to use your term, which are 
necessarily untrusted connections, but which aren't necessarily the only 
untrusted connections.


>  > As a small point, the "Grid" definition would appear to mean that our 
> current 'Standalone' mode is confusingly also a
>  > "Grid". Is there a suitable alternative term to "Grid" for this 
> definition? I've run into this problem myself when
>  > writing about OpenSim. I keep having to using unclear formulations 
> such as OpenSim installations.
> 
> I have always said that we should talk about "Services" not "Servers". 
> The trust is established between services, and the standalone is a 
> "Grid" trust boundary in itself.

Yes.