ADR-35: Catalyst communication protocol optimizations

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Latest published version:
https://adr.decentraland.org/adr/ADR-35
Authors:
pablitar
menduz
pentreathm
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Context and Problem Statement

We are facing some issues that need to be addressed. We can list a couple of them as important:

Decision

We will start rolling out a series of Protocol optimizations to help Decentraland communications systems to scale in different ways.

Planned optimizations topics are:

Rationale behind the removal of "layers"

Layers are logical "connection groups" inside the realms, as of today, realms are mapped 1to1 with a catalyst instance. Inside the catalyst, it would be sub-optimal to connect users all-to-all.

By default every catalyst have 28 layers, each one with a different color name. We can infer then, that the maximum amount of concurrent users connected to a catalyst is 2800 users (28 * 100).

Layers are the color after the name of the realm:

artemis-amber
        ^^^^^ layer
^^^^^^^       realm

Layers served some purposes during their existence:

Layers served their purpose in early stages of the project, but the time has come to evolve the protocol. Therefore we introduce connection islands.

What are connection islands?

Connection islands are groups of connections based on their geographical location, instead of logic layers.

The implementation performs real-time clustering, organizing connections in islands (clusters) of close peers, which will connect to each otheer

That solves many problems:

The implementation of the algorithm can be found at https://github.com/decentraland/archipelago

Status

Accepted

Consequences

Call to action for scene creators

The first change of those is the removal of layers. This week (July 26, 2021) the peer-testing catalyst will have the new API and it won't have layers. Since layers and realms were always a "packed-string", the changes in the protocol should not be harmful. But we understand some scenes use the layers from the realms. And that will require adaptation from your end.

Changes to SDK API

Scene developers have access to a EnvironmentAPI, which they can use to get information about current realm.

No changes to types have been made to maintain code compatibility. But when the player enters a realm that doesn't have a layer (new API), it will now come with an empty string as layer.

import { getCurrentRealm } from "@decentraland/EnvironmentAPI"

const realm = await getCurrentRealm()

realm.layer // Will be '' (empty string) if the realm is "new API"

This should work well for comparing a realm with another (for instance, if you need to check that two realms are the same, you can use the same logic as before).

Will probably result in minor issues when showing the realm. For instance, artemis-.

Keep in mind that realms with layers and realms without layers will coexist for some time, so it'd be ideal to support both empty layer and not-empty layer in code.

Changes to catalyst APIs

New catalysts won't have layers at all. This means:

There are a couple of use cases for clients that have been considered, and new APIs have been implemented:

Keep in mind that realms with layers and realms without layers will coexist for some time, so you'll need to check the lighthouse version in order to see if it is old or new.

For instance:

{
  "name": "thor",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "currenTime": 1627409585484,
  "env": {
    "secure": false,
    "commitHash": "53c191af95c8969a82d9a80acc58fd809f86ae11",
    "catalystVersion": "1.2.0"
  },
  "ready": true,
  "usersCount": 0,
  "usersParcels": []
}

Since it says "version 1.0.0", and it doesn't include the attribute layers, it doesn't have layers.

If it is an old catalyst, will return something like this:

{
  "name": "heimdallr",
  "version": "0.2",
  "currenTime": 1627410339856,
  "env": {
    "secure": false,
    "commitHash": "3ce6eff06d4605655fc5b801bfcbca2af9ab7dd9",
    "catalystVersion": "1.2.0"
  },
  "ready": true,
  "layers": []
}

You can also assume that if the response of GET /comms/status?includeLayers=true&includeUsersParcels=true includes the attribute layers, then it is an old catalyst. And if it includes the attribute usersParcels then it is a new catalyst.

License

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0-1.0. DRAFT Living