Abstract

We describe the first system that provides query based associative access to the contents of distributed information servers. Queries describe desired object attributes, and are automatically forwarded to servers that contain relevant information. In typical distributed information systems there are so many objects that underconstrained queries can produce large result sets and extraordinary processing costs. To deal with this scaling problem we use content labels to permit users to learn about available resources and to quickly formulate queries with adequate discriminatory power. We present experimental data that show that certain content label attributes can be automatically chosen. We have implemented associative access to a distributed set of information servers in the content routing system. A content routing system is organized as a network of servers called content routers that present a single query based image of a distributed information system. Experiments motivated by our video access service show that substantial performance benefits result when content routers are removed from the client-server path once an object of interest is found.

Citations