I'm not sure if Data Streaming is the correct wordage, but I was wondering how you update content if you have an mmo. For example let's say you use JME to build a MMO game engine. How would one go about setting up a system so that content and file updates could be streamed to a client? Are there common techniques that are used by other software to solve this problem? Thanks in advance.
This might be of interest to you:
http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/jmeforum/index.php?topic=7204.0
JGN (http://javagn.org) can be utilized for this as well. You can actually support multiple streams of multiple files concurrently in JGN across a single connection (UDP or TCP) and actually have a InputStream / OutputStream to work with. This is great for streaming large files across a MMO type of game where you’re already connected to a server you don’t have to open a new connection to send the content across and it can be validated in-game rather than separate security or some other module.
Thanks guys appreciate the help. JME is quickly becoming one of my favorite engines.
Another question I had is, how does The Darkstar Project?
What are the differences between the two?
Can they be used together?
Should they be used together?
Can Darkstar do data streaming?
In the long run which is the better choice?
Thanks again.
Darkstar is primarily designed for MMO type games. I've heard of a few people that are happy with it. 
I'm biased towards JGN since it's my API and perhaps a little too negative towards Darkstar, so I will keep silent on that issue. However, I will state that JGN is significantly lighter and can do a lot of things Darkstar cannot…although the converse is also true, but that gap is dimenishing.
ronbravo said:
Another question I had is, how does The Darkstar Project?
What are the differences between the two?
Can they be used together?
Should they be used together?
Can Darkstar do data streaming?
In the long run which is the better choice?
Thanks again.
project darkstar is built for MMO, it is a completely different approach to the server architecture problem. i would say its completely different from JGN. it is harder to use but imo, more powerful for alot of cutting-edge situation like persistant world, multi-threading tasks and so on.
no, i dont think JGN and DarkStar can be or should be used together.
yes, DarkStar can do data steaming but thats more or less a standard feature for any server container system.
the which one is better question really depends on ur project. do u need persistant world? do u have alot of small tasks? how many players u r aiming for? how experienced u r? how much budget u have? how much time u have?
in general, i would say JGN is the easy to use but quite powerful approach. but DarkStar is the top end, possiblely the most powerful server system, but hard to learn and hard to use when compared with JGN.
That's a fair evaluation, but I'd also challenge you to find any complete game that is using Darkstar. Can't imagine why that might be… :roll:
Also, I've been working (though not much lately as time is hard to come by) to create an extension to JGN for complete MMO support that easily rivals Darkstar. It is not released yet, but I'm developing the system for use in the MMO game I'm currently developing.
BTW, you can connect JGN into Darkstar…you can actually gain a significant communication performance enhancement by doing so, but it's like developing a web application and using JBoss (that wraps around Tomcat) to deploy your WAR rather than going directly to Tomcat instead. Yes, you gain additional functionality, but if you're not using that functionality all it amounts to is bloat. 
neakor and darkfrog, thanks. To sum up an answer for all those questions you've asked, it would basically be myself and probably one other developer. We have low to mid range programming skill in java, although we have mid to high in other programming languages. Right now I am looking to get some server/client stuff up and running as quickly and as painlessly as possible. Based on what you all have said, it seems like JGN would be an excellent place to start.
In the future hopefully the project may ballon to include MMO/Social Network type of a scope but at the moment I only imagine contain a network for about 5 to 20 people. I imagine sending the clients a terrain and then when ever we make changes on the dev side, we can just stream the changes to the client. As darkfrog said earlier, JGN supports this now so I am satisfied.
I know Perpetual was using Darkstar for Star Trek Online, but seeing how they've closed down and never released the game, they don't really count as a completed game that is using Darkstar.
Thank you all for the answers. I'll look into JGN to get the ball rolling. Thanks.