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Thursday, January 31, 2019

HotBits: Server 3.9 released, JSON support

HotBits server version 3.9 is now in production at Fourmilab. This server is 100% upward compatible with existing HotBits users and API client programs, but has been extensively restructured to improve reliability and fault tolerance. It is able to communicate with multiple HotBits generators and recover from any timeouts or connection problems in obtaining data from them, and requests data from the two identical Fourmilab HotBits generators in a round-robin sequence.

In addition to the existing hexadecimal, binary C data structure, and XML data formats, JSON is now supported. JSON is a JavaScript-derived data structure representation which is increasingly used by Web applications. HotBits delivered in JSON format provide all of the information to clients that the XML representation delivers.

Version 3.9 of the HotBits server supports random data generation using the RDSEED instruction implemented in recent Intel microprocessors. This generator can be configured when the HotBits server is built, and allows testing a HotBits generator on a machine which has a suitable Intel processor without the need for the radioactive generator. This option is never used in production HotBits servers, but makes it much easier to test the generator software in development environments.

If you want to set up your own HotBits server (which is now more easily done if you have an Intel processor which supports RDSEED), you can download the HotBits version 3.9 software.

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