define "server"

[anselm Hexicola]

As a computing illiterate, I struggle to understand the various uses of the term.

Now, here are some uses I think I know about.

1. [ within LSL ]  Using a master script to control slave scripts.

2. [ connecting LSL scripts to an external web-site ]  Using Php and so on with the likes of http_request.

3. [ how SL gets generated ] Big fan-cooled machines in the Nevada desert.

4. [ using your own PC ] VERY vague about this one ... but is this what Hi-Fidelity and SL2 will involve?

[Rolig Loon]

Like many terms, "server" has a technical meaning and a number of looser colloquial meanings. Strictly, "server" is applied to a software program or suite of programs that manage information flow. More commonly, people think of a "server" as the machine that runs that software. In SL, we often blend both meanings by creating virtual servers, which are LSL scripted objects that can be used to handle communication among a network of other objects. Think, for example, of rental boxes that all communicate with a landlord's "server" to keep track of which tenants are in which properties and when they have paid their rent. Or the updating servers commonly used by SL merchants to send improved versions of their products to customers. As you notice, we can also use "servers" that are outside of SL but communicating with LSL scripts through the Internet. Those are particularly useful for applications that are working across several regions in SL or that need to keep track of very large amounts of data. What's important to all of these examples is the idea of using one central program to manage information that comes from (or goes to) many other programs. That central program "serves" the network of reporting programs. Hence, the name "server".

If you want a much more technical and rigorous discussion, I suggest doing a quick Google search. You'll find more than you ever wanted to know.

 

EDIT: incidentally, if you want to learn about the rather large set of servers that Linden Lab uses to manage everything from the simulators that contain our landscape to the databases that hold our inventories, see HTTP://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/server_architecture