Re: root knowledge

Christian Huitema <Christian.Huitema@sophia.inria.fr> Tue, 12 May 1992 14:47 UTC

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From: Christian Huitema <Christian.Huitema@sophia.inria.fr>
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Cc: Paul-Andre.Pays@faugeres.inria.fr, osi-ds@cs.ucl.ac.uk
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Subject: Re: root knowledge
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>The key issue:  X.500(88) is insufficient.   The main reasons
>   a) there is no replication model
>   b) there is no mechanism for representing knowledge in the directory

This is certainly true, Steve. But in fact, there is a wider problem with X.500:

    c) the scope of searches is only determined by the name structure.

That is, a server cannot hold "everything about research in France" if there is
not a "research" branch in the naming tree. It is supposed to hold "everything
about France" which is in practice undoable.

The fact is that we cannot perform distributed data base access intelligently
and resort a mixture of crude hierarchies and brute force replications. Hierarchies
and caching are OK for a "read only" service, e.g. DNS. They make a stinking white
page service.

Christian Huitema