[ecf-dev] getting started with ECF

[David Donohue <dd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello!
ECF looks like just what I need.  I have 2 questions.

My first question is: which protocols, service APIs, & architecture
should I use?
I want to have clustered OSGi applications, to permit handling a large
load on my calculation-intensive Eclipse RAP web application.  I would
like to have my UI running as one OSGi instance.  This UI would
balance load of many users by connecting to distributed data servers,
each running as OSGi service, and each storing the data for a
different set of users.  These OSGi services might be running on the
same physical box or on distinct machines, within a network.  The
client would be doing data operations.  Ideally I could share objects
between client and servers.

My second question is: how do I get started?  I followed these instructions.
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Getting_Started_with_Using_the_ECF_Remote_Services_API
and I disabled r-OSGi on my Eclipse IDE.  However I still get this
message when starting the service host:
WARNING: Port 9278 already in use. This instance of R-OSGi is running
on port 9279

So I thought I would use a different protocol.  I tried
ecf.generic.client and ecf.generic.server.  But when I start the host
I get an exception

...Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Port value out of range: -1
	at java.net.ServerSocket.<init>(ServerSocket.java:180)
	at java.net.ServerSocket.<init>(ServerSocket.java:141)
	at org.eclipse.ecf.provider.comm.tcp.Server.<init>(Server.java:39)
	at org.eclipse.ecf.provider.generic.TCPServerSOContainerGroup.putOnTheAir(TCPServerSOContainerGroup.java:65)
	...

Bonus question:
It seems that the ECF update site(s) have been down the last few days?

Thanks for your help!
David Donohue