From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
References: <56266870.9050204@mail.com>
	<CAOw7k5jSixsHX7bdR76JoeFhm4StDFQy-tZDMcWjAxKJTeetzA@mail.gmail.com>
From: Adriano Verardo <adriano.verardo@mail.com>
Message-ID: <56267FA6.9000502@mail.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2015 19:53:42 +0200
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Subject: Re: [9fans] About IL
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Charles Forsyth wrote:
>
> On 20 October 2015 at 17:14, Adriano Verardo <adriano.verardo@mail.com
> <mailto:adriano.verardo@mail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Could IL be actually more effective than TCP/IP in a closed net ?
>     I think about a robotic application using very small cpus.
>     What about Styx -- ore something similar - over IL ?
>
>
> Styx is (now) the same as 9P, and it was always similar: not a
> transport protocol, but a service protocol that ran on any suitable
> transport,
> and not just on IP networks.
Ok
> We used a special link-level transport protocol over infra-red to use
> Styx to talk to a programmable Lego brick from Inferno. It did
> run-length encoding, and possibly some other compression scheme.
Possible scenarios:
1) distributed intelligence to control complex mechanic devices. Say
arms but in general whatever else.
2) coordination of 2+ submarine robots. Thus a very very low bandwidth
(kHz).
3) coordination of flying drones.
>
> All you need is a transport protocol that reliably preserves content
> and order. It doesn't need to keep record boundaries,
> although transport protocols are sometimes simpler if you do, working
> with messages instead of a raw byte stream.
> It doesn't need to be an Internet Protocol (ie, there doesn't need to
> be an IP layer).
Yes, I have a little experience with 9P. In a industrial appl I did
years ago, Plan9 nodes export drivers etc as a "control/monitor" file
server.
The Plan9 subsystem is monitored (also) through a Windows/P9 interface.
Mission critical and a little complex but no bandwidth
constraints.
> 9P itself will multiplex many clients
> on the same connection to a server, so you don't need a higher-level
> multiplexing protocol using ports etc.
> In fact, using attach names, you can have several different server
> trees served on the same connection to many different clients.
So, is it correct to say that IL is a too complex solution although
lighter than TCP/IP ?

adriano