Distributed bandwidth (was RE: [Theforum] Re: [Content] Mail Alert! - Sat Jun 22 31226)

William Anderson neuro at well.com
Sun Jun 23 03:39:30 CDT 2002


---- Original Message ----
From: "Joel Canfield" <joel at spinhead.com>
To: <theforum at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2002 6:51 AM
Subject: Distributed bandwidth (was RE: [Theforum] Re: [Content] Mail
Alert! - Sat Jun 22 31226)

> > > I don't particularly like the idea of shutting down beo, but it
> > > might be a wise move in the interim.
> > >
> > > Thoughts?
> >
> > +1. Better to maintain a reputation for quality than to stay
> > up all the
> > time. the amount of e-mail coming in about this is
> > astounding, and that's just the people who have bothered to
> > contact us. Also, a note might help draw more offers of
> > mirrors, so we can get it back up without throttling, etc quicker.
>
> +1 - I'd rather look professional. Also, handled properly, it could
> be a good wake-up call to alert folks to the reality of our situation.
>
> What's the status/thinking on setting up mirrors? Is the project
> underway, in the planning stage, still under discussion?

the bulk of my thoughts are in the BrowserIdeas topic in the wiki, and in
the feel of beo being a museum, I thought 'curator' is a great term for the
volunteers who wish to mirror chunks of beo ... but it kinda breaks down
like this:

- curators volunteer/donate bandwidth and server space which they
  have full control over (e.g. no Geocities mirrors, etc) so that
  browsers can be mirrored in their space.

- the browser archive is broken down at the root directory level

- each curator carries however many browsers they feel they can handle
  in terms of keeping them up-to-date and being available for download

- on beo, download links point to a script which sends the file request
  to the appropriate curator's mirror

- for the larger browsers, in terms of bandwidth usage (e.g. IE),
  multiple curators would be encouraged to carry the complete archive
  for that browser, and download requests would be randomised across
  all those curators - this avoids the burden of one curator carrying
  a huge amount of bandwidth, and the need to break up a browser archive
  into subarchives, e.g. 4.x, 5.x, 6.x

- for the smaller browsers, they could be initially randomly assigned to
  curators, so that perhaps the lowest 20 browsers in terms of bandwidth
  usage would be spread across 20 curators - the extra bandwidth load
  would be minimal, and would ensure the preservation of those lesser
  accessed parts of the archive

- as new additions are made to the master beo archive (which would be
  inaccessible to the general public), the curators would be responsible
  for updating their archives with the new additions - this means that
  there is one point of contact for update notification and downloads,
  and would be properly managed to ensure no abuse could take place

Thoughts?

--
_ __/|   ___  ___ __ _________  "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
\`O_o'  / _ \/ -_) // / __/ _ \  for Sega." -- Brodie, 'Mallrats'
=(_ _)=/_//_/\__/\_,_/_/  \___/ @ well.com :: William Anderson
   U - Ack! Phttpt! Thhbbt!     http://neuro.me.uk/




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