README.md

Prism

A simple, fast, and distributed data broker for clustered server use.

Purpose

The typical problem with distributed servers is encountering the three main issues:

• The server typically has to rely on a central DB server (which adds latency to farther regions)
• A server that does use distributed DBs needs to handle synchronization between the DBs (which is hard to do correctly)
• Database mutations and queries are typically slow and asynchronous operations are difficult to implement correctly

Thus, the solution is to use a broker to extract all the database logic. However, we want a distributed broker so that we are able to limit latency but also have some way to handle synchronization between the brokers.

Architecture

Features/Development

• Net.Server - central server to handle all UDP traffic
• Net.Manager - central manager to handle all connections
• Net.Conn - connection struct to store connection info
• Net.Packet - Protobuf packets to handle all the different packet types
• Net.Cluster - functions to connect to other nodes and broadcast updates (via OTP)
• Net.Reliablity - enforces reliability on all packets as well as handling retries
• Net.Security - utilizes AES to encrypt and decrypt incoming packets
• Net.Dispatch - performs/stores all packet handlers (based on an ID specified)
• Prism.Metrics.Reporter - aggregates :telemetry events into periodic snapshots
• client/ts/loadtest.ts - UDP load generator for quick perf smoke tests

Docs:

• docs/performance.md
• docs/slos.md
• docs/service_api.md
• docs/runtime.md
• docs/protocol.md
• docs/minecraft_practice.md

Custom Services

Prism now supports first-class service modules. Register your services in config:

config :prism, :services, [
  Prism.Service.Default,
  Prism.Examples.PracticeService,
  MyApp.InventoryService
]

Example:

defmodule MyApp.InventoryService do
  use Prism.Service, name: "inventory", token: "secret-token"

  alias Prism.Handler.Context

  handle_request(100, :list_items)

  def list_items(context) do
    Context.json_reply(context, %{items: [%{sku: "abc", qty: 10}]}, message: "ITEMS_OK")
  end
end

Sample Practice App

Prism includes a runnable sample service for a Minecraft practice server:

• service: practice_service
• token: practice_token
• docs: docs/minecraft_practice.md
• TS demo: client/ts/practice-demo.ts

It supports:

• player upsert/profile lookup
• match result recording
• elo/wins/kills/streak leaderboards
• queue-specific ratings
• session/presence updates

Current Status

• Basic UDP server
• Basic packet handling
• Basic cluster connection
• Finish packet layer
• Add service authentication
• Implemented security via AES encryption
• Add database connection
• Add redis connection
• Add proper regional handling
• Find a way to combat synchronization issues (few will arise because of Cluster implementation)
• Add better logging