Endocrys [en doe kriss] (was Endocryn until a TradeMark popped up) is a distributed, encrypted, modular, real-time, hot-upgradable, self-healing system geared at autonomous communication between distributed systems. It was developed for a client in 2002 and 2003, and they’ve decided to let the 10-year exclusivity lapse early.

This is one of my favorite products, and I’m more than a little excited to get it back and get it out. It’s been battle-tested for many years, and I’m very proud of it. I’m working on getting the code cleaned up and abstracted before releasing it under the GPLv2. Below are edited points from slides describing Endocrys and why you might be interested in it.

The Problems

Dozens… hundreds… of systems, physical and virtual, all going about their business. Then something happens: maybe a disk drive failed, maybe a process died, maybe someone ordered a ‘reboot’ or ‘halt’. Those systems don’t have a way of communicating that externally. There is no “Hey, I’m rebooting, BRB” in the server world.

Dozens… hundreds… of systems, physical and virtual, all going about their business. Then you have a question: How many of them have Western Digital harddrives listed in a recent recall? How many of them are running <2GB of RAM? How many of them are running a certain version of some software listed in a security advisory? There’s no way to ask that question to the farm. There is no “Dear Lazyweb, answer this question for me” in the server world.

The Purpose

At its most basic level, Endocrys is a conduit between all of the systems and you. Think of it like a gigantic Instant Messaging buddy list, where all of your buddies are systems. When they’re online, they are in the list and can set their status messages, send you messages, send each other messages, receive messages, etc. Endocrys leverages the eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) to tie this framework into existing clients, transports and APIs, enabling a near-infinite number of possible applications or functions you can deploy.

The Technology

Endocrys is built as a framework – an abstract set of rules that can be extended at any time by writing little modules. These modules can be applied across the Endrocrys network instantly, without any downtime.

By leveraging XMPP, the Endocrys network is highly-redundant with no single fail points. Any number of “Communication Masters” (XMPP servers) are online, but only one is needed to keep communication flowing. All network communication is encrypted and signed. Partitioning and segmentation is handled rationally.

Communication is very similar to Instant Messaging, there is relatively no latency, and XMPP assures delivery even to systems offline when the message was sent.

Monitoring and control systems can participate on Endocrys, automating the remediation of problems remotely and automatically.

The Protocol

XMPP sits atop TCP, and atop that sits the Endocrys Communication Protocol aka Autocrys. ECP is a fully-authenticated, fully-controlled, skeptical protocol that serves both for sending structured announcements as well as sending and processing commands. The entire ECP specification is listed in AUTOCRYS.TXT. Endocrys agents can be written in any programming language, attached to any other framework, at any OSI level, as long as they can speak XMPP and implement ECP appropriately.

2 Comments

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  By Romeyn Prescott, October 27, 2009 @ 9:09 pm

  OK…THAT is freakin’ COOL. The applications are practically endless and mind-boggling to contemplate.

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1. M@Blog » More About Endocrys — October 30, 2009 @ 10:24 pm

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