[Nel] Suggestion for the NeL network library / architecture

Tue, 12 Dec 2000 12:11:26 +0100

According to MIGUEL ANGEL BLANCH LARDIN:
+> Just imagine that both copies of a object multicast different 
+> positions, you have to choose what is the best one, and whatever your 
+> choose is, it will be wrong, and servers can't be wrong.
+
+Ahem, no. I might have used object and agent in various contexts, but
+an agent is the only one which is authorised to change its state. The
+other objects are "replica", or passive objects. Each agent may exist
+only as a single copy over the set of processes, and he is the entity
+responsible for updating the local states of the replica objects in
+the other processes.
+
+If you want "what is your XYZ", the local replica answers. However, if
+you want "teleport to XYZ", the message is transmitted across the network
+to the unique agent, which updates its internal state, and then retransmits
+to all replicas "set internal state XYZ". And the latter is when multicast
+helps when there are many replicas to update.
+
+> Replycating work can be a real pain.
+
+Hey, if I could buy a terahertz processor and have everything run on a
+single process, I'd be happy too :)
+
+-- 
+Vincent Archer                                         Email: archer@nevrax.com
+
+Nevrax France.                              Off on the yellow brick road we go!
+
+