RE: [JDEV] A question regarding scaling

[Jeremie Miller <jeremie@netins.net>]

> 	Well, here is how I envision this being able to happen..  Let's say I am
> twolf@jabber.org.  jabber.org contains my password and personal information.
> I then use my client to attach to jabber.tiac.net, as twolf@jabber.org.
> jabber.tiac.net would contact jabber.org to validate my password, and tell
> the server that twolf@jabber.org is connected on jabber.tiac.net, and to
> forward messages there.

There are a few issues here...

First, having "roaming" setup where the server your connected to talking
to your real server doesn't offer any benifits, since everything will end
up going back to your real server anyway.  I think the direct
client->server connection is always going to be the best route, just like
how HTTP works.

Next: load balancing and lots of simultaneous connections to servers.
There are two solutions that I can think of easily.  First, do it just
like how you'd do a large web site, round-robin DNS or the like.  Have a
farm of front end servers and a hefty back end database server, and
however the DNS resolves is the server you are connected to.  This would
require the authoring of a special module on the server to do everything
through the database, but much of that framework will probably already be
in place for other purposes.  Secondly, there is a special type of
"client" that the server understands, that's a "MULTI" client.  It can
harbor multiple simultaneous user logins over one connection to the
server.  A simple proxy could be built that groups of users connect to and
everything feeds back to the one main server.

I'm quite sure that any needed load balancing or roaming problems can be
solved as they are found, the architecture is quite scalable.

> > Sorry if I'm being obtuse here, but I need to ask these questions as I'm
> > evaluating including support for Jabber in our product.

No problem, please ask away :) I get quite a few personal inquiries from
others evaluating supporting Jabber and am willing to help in any way I
can.

Jer