Immigration
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Each cybersea is a closed container with a set number of controlled entry points
into it. The entry points are called gates. Two gates connect two cyberseas together
via a channel. Entities can only exist in a channel in a frozen state.
Frozen entities pass along the channel in a freezer, a special kind of container.
It is also possible for a freezer to pass into an intermediate container during its
trip along a channel; for instance, a freezer may find itself placed into a physical
container, such as a floppy disk or a CD. Whatever happens within the channel, the
immigration mechanism is exactly the same.
When an entity wishes to migrate, it is automatically issued a passport (unless it
already has one through a previous migration) by the
entity manager. A passport is used to contain a set of every citizenship ID that
an entity collects. Whereas within the local sea, a citizenship ID has no cybersea
ID, the citizenship ID in a passport contains the full citizenship ID (cybersea +
local ID).
The first step in migration is to ensure all security directives have been applied
at both the old and new cybersea. The migration must be allowed by both cyberseas
according to the security directives, policies and mechanisms of the two cyberseas.
Step nbr two is to remove the migrating entity from all active relationships (in
effect putting it to sleep). It is then frozen and packaged into a
freezer container. The recieving cybersea is then asked to confirm whether it has
the necessary blueprint to support the entity. If it does not then the blueprint itself
must be migrated, following from step one above.
Once the necessary security checks have been completed and the freezer is at
the gate ready for shipping, the sending entity manager then initiates the
transfer through that gate.
On receipt at the receiving cybersea gate, the immigration service there
registers the entity, giving it a citizenship ID in that cybersea. It also
goes to its passport and, for every entry, it transmits the new full citizenship
ID to the appropriate entity manager. These entity managers take that current
full citizenship ID and attach it to their migrated citizenship record for that
entity, ensuring that every cybersea in which the entity has been a citizen
has the most current citizenship ID for it, and can communicate with it, if
required in one step.
Each entity manager is free to manage migrated entities as it sees fit. Their
forwarding addresses can be kept around indefinitely, they can be deleted or
archived after a set time or the entity manager may chose to go through every
relationship in the cybersea and look for references to the migrated object, deleting
it only if there are no references. Such is the flexibility of KOSH.
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