FeedSync: Synchronizing the Mesh

Posted By: Dan Fernandez | Apr 25th, 2008 @ 9:30 AM | 22,595 Views | 17 Comments
Synch is one of those things that sounds much, much, much simpler than it actually is Wink  Live Mesh is built with synchronization as a core primitive – every object in the system is synch-enabled, and cloud and client runtimes manage the notification and synchronization process.  We sat down with Steven Lees, designer of the FeedSync protocol, and Steve Garrity, Akash Sagar and Vlad Fedorov from the Live Platform Services team, for a detailed review of how synch works in the Live Mesh platform and experience.

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#Apr 26th, 2008 @ 9:03 AM
Bas
Bas
It finds lightbulbs.
staceyw wrote:
A C9 mesh would seem to be a perfect app to "meshify".  Make posts local (using rich wcf app and *editor) and the post is synced to cloud.  The vids can stay http links or checked for download.  Blogs in general would seem to be a good fit.  Could this be start of a new blog ecosystem?


That's an interesting approach, but what would that add apart from being able to use a rich, local editing application? I'm still trying to wrap my head around the possibilites of Mesh in general.
#Apr 26th, 2008 @ 9:27 AM
staceyw
staceyw
Before C# there was darkness...
Bas wrote:

staceyw wrote: A C9 mesh would seem to be a perfect app to "meshify".  Make posts local (using rich wcf app and *editor) and the post is synced to cloud.  The vids can stay http links or checked for download.  Blogs in general would seem to be a good fit.  Could this be start of a new blog ecosystem?


That's an interesting approach, but what would that add apart from being able to use a rich, local editing application? I'm still trying to wrap my head around the possibilites of Mesh in general.


The first thing that come to mind is the easy nature to start up a blog yourself.  No blog service required.  Just invite your members.  The other thing is control.  Your in control of your own ecosystem.  Make it how you want, you don't have to wait for Blogger to add a feature - add it yourself.  That is 3rd thing - dev support.  Can do anything you can dream up and roll it out yourself.  Offline posting is another and auto sync when your client comes back online.  The options are vast.  Option to easily use both Rich client or standard web is a plus using same back-end.  How many times have you wanted a different editor here?  Or a your own way to organize msg threads?  Or your own way to search postings? ,etc.
#Apr 27th, 2008 @ 7:15 AM
Minh
Minh
WOOH! WOOH!
Hi,

Is the "notification" from the "storage service" in the cloud to "D2" a real push event (requiring a server on D2)?

Or is it implemented as a polling model by D2 asking the "storage service" periodically for any new data?
#Apr 27th, 2008 @ 11:32 AM
jamiet
jamiet
staceyw wrote:
Naturally, also a way to reinvent NNTP as it is very NNTP like but with N+ local "servers".  Microsoft ngs and forums could standardize on one storage - mesh.  Then clients could be NG based or web (i.e. forum) based.  I need the API so I can start working Smiley


YES! This is what I want. A Mesh client for Microsoft forums so as to put a stop to the endless (and pointless) NNTP -v- web forums debate that I seem to unwittingly get embroiled in day by day these days.

-Jamie
#Apr 27th, 2008 @ 7:55 PM
eddwo
eddwo
Wheres my head at?
The more videos I watch on this the more it seems like its just like WinFS for the Web, implemented over HTTP rather than SQL Server.

All the things WinFS was to bring, like syncronisation, notification events, relationships etc have been layed over the basic feed processing infrastructure in a way thats cross-platform and can be implemented on mobile devices of different sizes.

They have avoided falling into the trap of trying to define the schemas for common types like Contacts and Calenders to satisfy all possible requirements, at least in this initial version. Instead any custom data type is just a just a blob of data that is represented with some consistent meta-data and replicated as-is.

Now I just wonder how long it will take for other applications on Windows to get on board with this model. Things like Windows photo gallery and media player need to be Mesh enabled so that all the meta-data in the app specific databases can sync across machines as well as the file contents.

I love the idea of installing applications into your Mesh, that then just show up on all your machines, or that can access certain parts of your data from an online service.
You could then have a Mesh enabled photo frame that displays images from a particular folder that are inserted directly from a camera, from drag-and-drop on a desktop, or from subscribing to a feed from a photo sharing service, or all three methods at once.
#Apr 28th, 2008 @ 1:38 AM
Pace
Pace
In The Mix...
These downloads seem to be getting steadily bigger Perplexed
#Apr 28th, 2008 @ 8:53 AM
Charles
Charles
Welcome Change
Pace wrote:
These downloads seem to be getting steadily bigger


Which is precisely why we have been offering low res versions for the past 6 months (click on the low res link in the post description text - this specific behavior requirement will change in V4 as we'll offer multiple versions just like on10.net and the rest of our properties do)....

C
#Apr 28th, 2008 @ 11:11 AM
eddwo
eddwo
Wheres my head at?
We're up to about 4.5GB of content on Live Mesh stuff alone. Not that they weren't all really interesting, but it took nearly a week to download them all.
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