Semantic-Free Referencing in Linked Distributed Systems

Every distributed system that employs linking requires a Reference Resolution Service (RRS) to convert link references to locations. We argue that the Web’s use of DNS for this function is a bad idea. This paper discusses the nature, design, and use of a scalable and dynamic RRS. We make two principal arguments about the nature of reference resolution: first, that there should be a general-purpose application-independent substrate for reference resolution, and second that the references themselves should be unstructured and semantic-free. We observe that distributed hash tables (DHTs) provide an elegant and convenient platform for realizing these goals, and we present a general-purpose DHT-based Semantic-Free Referencing (SFR) architecture.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: IPTPS
• Authors: Hari Balakrishnan, Scott Shenker, Michael Walfish
• Keywords: General-purpose Application-independent Substrate, IPTPS 2003, Reference Resolution, Reference Resolution Service