Abstract

A name service maps a name of an individual, organization or facility into a set of labeled properties, each of which is a string. It is the basis for resource location, mail addressing, and authentication in a distributed computing system. The global name service described here is meant to do this for billions of names distributed throughout the world. It addresses the problems of high availability, large size, continuing evolution, fault isolation and lack of global trust. The non-deterministic behavior of the service is specified rather precisely to allow a wide range of client and server implementations. Introduction There are already enough names. One must know when to stop. Knowing when to stop averts trouble. Tao Te Ching The name service I am describing in this talk is intended to be the basis for resource location, mail addressing, and authentication in a distributed computing system. The system I have in mind is a large one, large enough to encompass all the computers in t...

Citations

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