[sldev] Re: [ARCH] Raw notes from the Second Life Grid Architecture Working Group.

Lawson English lenglish5 at cox.net
Sat Sep 15 18:19:49 PDT 2007


Tao Takashi wrote:
>
> 2007/9/15, Argent Stonecutter <secret.argent at gmail.com 
> <mailto:secret.argent at gmail.com>>:
>
>     What is the motivation for splitting the regions up that way,
>     particularly if a region host being down means that region is not
>     accessible. I would have thought that the whole point to moving the
>     region data from the region hosts to a back end would be to make the
>     region hosts fungible.
>
>
>
> As noted there is a workitem about thinking about different ways to 
> split the system up.
> My guess is also that much of the existing simulator code can be 
> reused that way.
>
> If you think about the region host as just some interface though you 
> might have as much
> redundancy behind that interface as you like. So in fact it might be 
> possible to split up a
> region completely different behind that.
>
> I also wonder how flexible a region implementation can be. Like if you 
> want to create
> something like EVE Online with it you might have a solar system as a 
> region with
> assets like space sations, planets etc. Avatars are mostly other space 
> ships.
>
> A completely different viewer might be needed for that and thus there 
> needs
> also some ways of specifying what the viewer needs to be capable of.
>
> Regarding region domains I actually think it's a good idea though. 
> That way you can
> simply add your own regions to an existing grid and not central 
> servers are needed.
> (except identity, topology etc. but these might also not be that 
> central in fact but per
> region domain or per agent domain).
>
> I hope though that Linden Lab will add more about the motivation in 
> the wiki.
> (like use cases :-) )
>

Different topologies for region-connections would be incompatible with 
the LL design, of rectangular islands where people can walk/fly across 
borders at any point.

3D borders might be interesting, but in the long run, non-rectangular 
sims with various kinds of portal interfaces, will be the way to go, I 
think. Where available, no spaceship captain would ever take the "scenic 
route" of traveling at sublight speeds over any large distance. They'd 
use the handy space warp buoys (portals) instead. The appearance of vast 
distances would then be just a drawing convention, rather than travel time.

This would also allow non-LL-style sims/regions/zones/whatevers to 
interact with the LL universe without having to conform to Linden sim 
conventions for topology, etc.

In a sense, we do NOT want a "one size fits all" solution, save in the 
sense that everyone knows how to handle the transition between two 
different kinds of sims, including the issues of avatar clothing and 
accoutrements, appearance, possessions, and money.









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