rfc1689 template

["by way of [e-mail]" <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

   Somebody suggested to me that I send you information about my system,
Alibi, for possible inclusion in rfc1689 or future revisions thereof.
My installed base is not very large, but people may be interested to know
more about Alibi nevertheless.  Below I append a template for Alibi.

            Thanks,

--    SQL-Agent Man
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Dave Flater, U.S. SQL Service                     [e-mail]
        Click <HERE> for disclaimers, <HERE> for random quotations.
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 Date template updated or checked:  29 September, 1994
 By: Name:            David Flater
     Email address:   [e-mail]

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 NIR Tool Name:  Alibi

 Brief Description of Tool:

    OVERVIEW:

      Alibi (Adaptive Location of Internetworked Bases of Information)
      consists of a network of information servers and a collection of
      information bases.  The information bases are affiliated with
      individual information servers.

      The information servers accept queries from users (via a client
      program) and either arrange for them to be answered by the
      information bases affiliated with them or forward the queries to
      other servers that might be able to do so.  Users provide queries
      that describe what they want, and the information system attempts
      to locate and fetch it.  Users do not need to indicate the source
      of the information they desire, traverse a hierarchical file
      system, or navigate a hyperdocument to get to the information.

      A special, fully distributed point-to-data routing algorithm is
      used by each site to forward queries towards the data they seek,
      and the information servers use a cooperative caching algorithm
      to improve performance.

    USER'S VIEW:

      The minimal client that is currently implemented provides the user
      with a prompt at which to enter queries.  The query language,
      which is described in on-line help, supports a combination of
      keyword matching and Boolean logic.  One matching data object is
      returned in response to each query; however, the client supports
      a "more" command that automatically constructs and submits a
      query to retrieve more data like the one just retrieved.
      Users may also clarify their queries using information derived
      from previous responses, such as a more precise
      classification or description of the desired data.

    INFORMATION PROVIDER'S VIEW:

      An information provider makes an information base available to
      Alibi by installing a mediator.  Unlike the information servers,
      a mediator is specialized to deal with only one class of data or
      one type of information base.  Mediators can employ
      domain-specific automatic indexing and/or information
      retrieval methods to try to answer subqueries that are
      passed to them by the information server.  Existing
      mediators include those for a generic indexed file system, a
      source code reuse library, a geographical database, Usenet News,
      the Edgar database, and a number of minor variations of the
      indexed file system such as an indexed image archive.

    INFORMATION TYPES SUPPORTED:

      The information servers ship non-textual data as binary objects
      that are tagged with various metadata such as classifications,
      descriptions, etc.  They do not worry about the interpretation of
      the data.  The minimal client either prints text to the screen or
      saves binary data to a file.  Building a more complex client to
      automatically process the many kinds of non-textual data that
      might arrive is future work.

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 Primary Contact(s):

  Name:            David Flater
  Email address:   [e-mail]
  Postal Address:  Bldg 225 Rm A266, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD  20899  U.S.A.
  Telephone:       [phone]
  Fax:             301-948-6213

  Email is the best way to contact me.

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 Help Line:  Same (David Flater).

   Level of support offered:
       o volunteer
       o all users

  Hours available:  9:30am-5pm EST/EDT

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 Related Working Groups:  None

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 Sponsoring Organisation / Funding source:
   University of Maryland Baltimore County
   National Institute of Standards and Technology
   National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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 Mailing Lists:  None

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 News groups:  None

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 Protocols:

  What is supported:  Alibi-specific protocols, plus any protocols for which
                      a mediator is built (currently NNTP, FTP, and NFS).

  What it runs over:  TCP/IP

  Other NIR tools this interworks with:  Few at present.

  Future plans:
    Delegate development of mediators to interested parties, or develop them
    as needed.

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 Servers:

  Date completed or updated:  9/30/94
  By:  David Flater

  Platform:  UNIX

  Primary Contact:
  Name:              David Flater
  Email address:     [e-mail]
  Telephone:         [phone]

  Server software available by anonymous FTP from speckle.ncsl.nist.gov
    in the directory flater/sources (Alibi1.0.tgz).

  Location of more information:
    speckle.ncsl.nist.gov:flater/papers; http://case50/jss.ps.

  Latest version number:  1.0

  Brief Scope and Characteristics:
    The server is called Unetd.  Configuration involves giving it a list of
    other Unetds to which it may connect.

  Approximate number of such servers in use:  6

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 Clients:

  Date completed or updated:  9/30/94
  By:  David Flater

  Platform:  UNIX

  Primary Contact:
  Name:              David Flater
  Email address:     [e-mail]
  Telephone:         [phone]

  Client software available from speckle.ncsl.nist.gov in the directory
    flater/sources (alibi.c).

  Location of more information:
    Refer to the main Alibi distribution Alibi1.0.tgz or
    speckle.ncsl.nist.gov:flater/papers or http://case50/jss.ps.

  Latest version number:  1.0

  Brief Scope and Characteristics:
    alibi.c is a minimal client that allows the user to submit queries to
    and process responses from a Unetd.

  Future plans:
    Fancy X client; automatic decoding of images, sound, HTML, ...; more
    automatic construction of queries.  Interested parties are welcome to
    develop a better client.

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 Demonstration sites:

   All of the following sites are running Unetds that will accept
   connections from clients or from other Unetds:

    retriever.cs.umbc.edu
    topdog.cs.umbc.edu
    greyhound.cs.umbc.edu
    zing.ncsl.nist.gov
    sunset.ncsl.nist.gov
    dunloggin.gsfc.nasa.gov

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 Documentation:

  Document Title:       README
  Location details:     in Alibi1.0.tgz distribution
       Site:            speckle.ncsl.nist.gov
       Full file name:  flater/sources/Alibi1.0.tgz

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 Bibliography:

   "Query Routing and Object Caching in a Large Distributed Information
   System," David W. Flater and Yelena Yesha, in Proceedings of the First
   International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management,
   November 1992, pp. 525-534.

   "An Information Retrieval System for Network Resources," David
   W. Flater and Yelena Yesha, Proceedings of the International Workshop
   on Next Generation Information Technologies and Systems, June 1993,
   pp. 156-162.

   "An Efficient Management of Read-Only Data in a Distributed
   Information System," David W. Flater and Yelena Yesha, International
   Journal of Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems, Vol. 2,
   No. 3, 1993, pp.  319-334.

   "Properties of Networked Information Retrieval with Alibi," David W.
   Flater and Yelena Yesha, Proceedings of the Second International
   Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, November 1993,
   pp. 31-38.

   "Managing Read-Only Data on Arbitrary Networks with Fully Distributed
   Caching," David W. Flater and Yelena Yesha, to appear in the
   International Journal of Intelligent and Cooperative Information
   Systems, September 1994.

   "Coping with Different Retrieval Standards in Next Generation
   Networks," David W. Flater and Yelena Yesha, to appear in
   Proc. Seventh International Conference on Parallel and Distributed
   Computing Systems, October 1994, Las Vegas, Nevada.

   "Alibi: A Novel Approach to Resource Discovery," David W. Flater and
   Yelena Yesha, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data
   Engineering, September 1994.

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