CloudB
Author: Antonello Provenzano <[email protected]>
----------------------------------------------------

Description
===========
CloudB (working name) is a distributed database management
system, that aims to let corporates or single developers to
storage and retrieve data across networks. Among its features
also the possibility for users to implement their own data
models with ease and benefit from the provided distribution
mechanism of parallelization of data computing and storage.


License
=======

CloudB is released under the LGPL version 3 open source license.
See COPYING for details of the license. If the license is not
present go to http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.txt to receive 
a copy of the license.

Components
==========

The composition of the application is complex and includes more
than one executable and components. The foundations of this
architecture are the following ones.

cloudb.dll          This is the core library of the system, that
                    contains all the basic functionalities and
					interfaces to build all other components.
					
mnode.exe           Exposes the machine where it's running as a 
                    node within the network.
					
cadmin.exe          The command-line utility used to configure
                    a CloudB network instance.
					
For modeling data stored in a 'path' (a distributed database
within a CloudB network), the application will require additional
libraries that implement the contracts defined by the core library.

The data-modeling libraries (also called 'path libraries') are required 
to be reachable by instances of 'mnode.exe': see the paragraph 'Installing
and Running CloudB'.

Requirements
============

CloudB requires .NET 2.0 (or higher) or Mono 1.9 (or higher)
to run and build. External libraries are requirements to the
components of CloudB and are provided into this package.

External libraries required by evenry component:
  mnode
    deveel-cli.dll
  cadmin
    deveel-cli.dll
	deveelrl.dll
	shellapp.dll


Building CloudB
===============

Some distributions of CloudB also include the sources of the 
application. The structure of these sources is the following.

  src/
    cadmin/
    cloudb/
    cloudb-log4net/
    cloudb-nunit/
    mnode/
  conf/
  libs/
  AUTHORS
  build
  build.bat
  COPYING
  COPYING.LESSER
  COPYING.HEADER
  README

Nant build tool (http://nant.sourceforge.net/) is required to 
compile the sources provided in this package: a version of the 
tool is provided in the folder "libs/nant".

Building with Script
--------------------
It is possible to compile the sources using the 'build' script 
provided. In Windows systems, this accepts the optional argument
'mono', that targets the compilation to the Mono framework.

Building with NAnt
------------------
Alternatively to the use of the script provided, it is also possible
to compile CloudB by invoking directly NAnt and passing the main
script 'cloudb.build' as argument.

Given '/home/deveel/cloudb' the base location where the package
was extracted, invoke the following:

Unix
mono /home/deveel/cloudb/libs/nant/NAnt.exe -buildfile:../../src/cloudb.build

Windows
C:\deveel\cloudb\libs\nant\NAnt.exe -buildfile:..\..\src\cloudb.build


The 'cloudb.build' file defines the following public targets that can
refine the compilation results.

'all'     - Builds all the components of CloudB (default)
'kernel'  - Call this to compile only the core library (cloudb.dll)
'cadmin'  - Compiles the Network Administration Tool
              (invokes the 'kernel' target)
'mnode'   - Builds the Machine Node service applicationn
              (invokes the 'kernel' target)
'clean'   - Cleans up all the outputs of the compilation by any of
            the other targets

It is also possible to customize the compilation by specifying one
or more of the following variables.

'platform'  - Defines the target machine architecture of the compiled
              components ('anycpu', 'x86', 'x64')
'output'    - The path where the compiled components will be placed
'system'    - Indicates the operating system family targetted by the
              compilation ('windows', 'unix')
'libs'      - Points to the path where the external libraries required
              by the compilation are located


Installing and Using CloudB
===========================

If you received a copy of the sources of the application, please refer
to the paraph 'Building CloudB' first.

Machine Node
------------
A machine can be exposed within a CloudB network as a node using the
executable 'mnode.exe': this can be invoked as a standalone application
or as a service (currently, Windows only).

Once mnode.exe is running in a machine, other machines within the network
and administrators will be able to reach it and interact with it.
A machine node can act as 'manager', 'root', 'block', even contemporarly:
its role will be assigned by administrators.

Administration Tool
-------------------
The administration of a network of machines (running mnode.exe) is delegated
to the command-line application 'cadmin.exe'. This is an interactive shell
that processes commands for administrating, controlling and monitoring
networks.