[Server-devel] Server strategy Nauru

[Martin Langhoff]

On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 5:28 AM, david <david at leeming-consulting.com> wrote:
> I am in Nauru where they have an OLPC program. I need to give some general advice on the strategy for providing server access.

Hi David!

> I understand that version 0.5 can only work with 40-50 connected, registered XOs simultaneously (or is it the other way round). Version 0.6 will cater for groups, so one could register XOs in class groups, and theoretically any number of XOs per server.

Correct. I'd say 0.5.2 to be more precise :-) It's about 40/50 XOs
connected at the same time doing collaboration. If users are not
worried about collaboration, then you can have as many as you want
"on", but once you have more than ~50 connected, collaboration becomes
unusable for everyone.

It's also true that the 0.5.2 => 0.6 upgrade will be very easy.

> (Question - can laptops be registered to multiple groups but select which group they connect to? I am thinking of an example where teachers used team teaching between two classes using the Chat activity in PNG, so it would be useful if that was possible and not lock the laptops into a single server group)

Not really - sorry.

> Nauru has only a few schools, which can easily be interconnected with point to point wireless links. The main school where the current 200 laptops are being used in 6 year 2 classes, will shortly be expanded to consolidate all year 1-3 students (about 800) on the same site. There will then be about 18 classrooms on the site.

The Nepal team was asking a similar question recently -- my
recommendatino is to run a small server in each school. The (local!)
network chatter will easily and pointlessly max out the wireless link.

> It's also not inconceivable on Nauru that an already established (but somewhat in disrepair) island wide wireless coverage for public Internet could also be used to give the community access to the school server. Any comments on the issues that would raise?

Hmmm. Not sure if you are talking about skipping running an AP in
favour of the wider-use wireless network or about opening up XS
services to everyone.

I strongly advise that you run your own APs -- coordinate so that
you're on a different non-overlapping channel. You want local
low-powered trasmissions to maximise the amount of data that can be
carried locally in a given amount of time.

If it's the other reading of the question -- if you want to offer the
XS services to other users -- perhaps you can, but it's an exercise
left for the reader I guess. There be dragons over there, methinks

cheers,


m
-- 
 martin.langhoff at gmail.com
 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
 - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff