Guiding Queries to Information Sources with InfoBeacons

The Internet provides a wealth of useful information in a vast number of dynamic information sources, but it is difficult to determine which sources are useful for a given query. Most existing techniques either require explicit source cooperation (for example, by exporting data summaries), or build a relatively static source characterization (for example, by assigning a topic to the source). We present a system, called InfoBeacons, that takes a different approach: data and sources are left “as is,” and a peer-to-peer network of beacons uses past query results to “guide” queries to sources, who do the actual query processing. This approach has several advantages, including requiring minimal changes to sources, tolerance of dynamism and heterogeneity, and the ability to scale to large numbers of sources. We present the architecture of the system, and discuss the advantages of our design. We then focus on how a beacon can choose good sources for a query despite the loose coupling...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: MIDDLEWARE
• Authors: Brian F. Cooper
• Keywords: Beacon, Dynamic Information Sources, MIDDLEWARE 2004, Most Existing Techniques