[news.eclipse.technology.ecf] Re: Group discovery

[Scott Lewis <slewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Oliver,

Oliver Kieselbach wrote:
> Hi,
> I just started to play with the ECF framework because it really looks
> interesting. One thing came to my mind when I was trying to implement a
> simple app to communicate between multiple Eclipse instances:
>
> As far as I can see, one if the Eclipse instances must play the 'server'
> role whereas the other are playing the client role  to build a working
> 'SharedObject' group. The question now is, how can an app check if there is
> already an Eclipse instance playing the server role, so that it can just
> join this group or, in case that client is the first member to join the
> group defining itself as the server.
>
> I think it has something to do with ad-hoc networks and service discovery
> like Apple's Rendezvous.
>
> Are there any plans to add something like an 'discovery & advertise' API to
> the ECF framework or is this just out of the scope?

I would personally like to see ECF add an discovery and advertise API. 
We've avoided working on such an api precisely because a) we have a lot 
on our technical plate right now, in terms of API design and 
example/demonstration applications b) we are a small team; and c) we 
don't require automated service lookup/discovery to do something 
immediately valuable...at least for a little while...we hope :-).

It would be very logical to have an abstract discovery api be defined as 
an ECF core extension point (like the existing sharedobjectcontainer 
factory) that allows/expects provider implementations to provide their 
own custom implementation...this could be implemented by something like 
Rendezvous, or the JXTA discovery protocols, or Jini or others I suppose.

Maybe we should consider moving up the focus on a discovery and 
advertise API to the ECF framework...would others like to give their 
view on this also?

And I should also ask:  are their people reading this list who would be 
interested in (and able) to work on such an addition to ECF?  We on the 
existing ECF team do not need to necessarily take this on ourselves...if 
there are others who would be willing and able to lead something like 
this it could very easily be spawned as an ECF sub-project.

One way to start might be to implement a new ECF provider, using 
something like Rendevous, and use such a provider implementation as a 
way to figure out what would be useful to abstract into a full discovery 
API addition to ECF.

Anyway...please everyone let us know (through posting to this list) how 
important such an API would be to you.

Thanks,

Scott

> Thanks
> -Oliver