Re: A proposal for a General Clustering Framework

[David Brower <David.Brower@oracle.com>]

Jeff Darcy wrote:
> > I think Mr. Darcy is making conclusions based on knowledge of some
> > particular RPC systems.
> 
> I really wish you wouldn't make such assumptions.  You don't know me or my
> background at all.  You have *no* reason to make assumptions about what I do
> or do not know.  I'm trying not to make similar assumptions about you,
> except where your own words indicate presence or absence of specific
> knowledge.  You'd do well to at least consider the possibility that those
> who disagree with you do so out of hard-won knowledge rather than ignorance.

I have built message based RPC systems that didn't require replies; they
were RPC because they completely conformed to CORBA interface definitions
and "oneway" semantics.  They were perfectly usable for the sorts of
things being discussed here.  I even talked about "oneway" in one
of the earliest messages on the topic.  I will note that
the kernel components of one commercial cluster system I'm working with
use RPC interfaces to do membership elections, so there is proof by
existance.  Another membership system I see uses hand-rolled
messaging.  Given an unconstrained choice, I'd use a viable RPC system--
it would keep me from hand rolling messages and keep me focused on
the more important algorithmic issues.  The main downside to any
particular RPC system is the learning curve necessary to make it
jump through the hoops you want, the way you want; and with some
you can't do anything but get it to play dead.  YMMV.

If I were -really- religious, I'd say to take one of the free ORBs
and use that with a new transport underneath.  But I think that
is overkill, and something else will do.

cheers,
-dB

Linux-cluster: generic cluster infrastructure for Linux
Archive:       http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-cluster/