Essence: A Resource Discovery System Based on Semantic File Indexing

Discovering different types of file resources (such as documentation, programs, and images) in the vast amount of data contained within network file systems is useful for both users and system administrators. In this paper we discuss the Essence resource discovery system, which exploits file semantics to index both textual and binary files. By exploiting semantics, Essence extracts keywords that summarize a file, and generates a compact yet representative index. Essence understands nested file structures (such as uuencoded, compressed, ‘‘tar’’ files), and recursively unravels such files to generate summaries for them. These features allow Essence to be used in a number of useful settings, such as anonymous FTP archives. We present measurements of our prototype and compare them to related projects, such as the Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) system and the MIT Semantic File System (SFS). We demonstrate that Essence can index more data types, generate smaller indexe...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1993
• Where: USENIX
• Authors: Darren R. Hardy, Michael F. Schwartz
• Keywords: Essence Extracts Keywords, Essence Resource Discovery, Features Allow Essence, Operating System, USENIX 1993