Subject: Re: FYI, AAP DEVELOPS DIGITAL I.D. SYSTEM FOR PUBLICATIONS

From: "Archie" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 18:01:39 -0500

>AAP DEVELOPS DIGITAL I.D. SYSTEM FOR PUBLICATIONS
>The Association of American Publishers, in conjunction with the Corporation
>for National Research Initiatives, has developed an electronic
>identification system for materials on the Internet.  The digital object

Very interesting.  From checking out the site at doi.org, it appears they're
using the Handle system.  A friend of mine and I were speculating on what
happens when there are something like 10**14 documents registered.  Doesn't
it seem like a hierarchical system would do the job more efficiently here?
Or is there such an architecture now behind the handles?

Archie

-- Archie Warnock                           Internet:  [email-masked]
-- A/WWW Enterprises                        Phone/FAX: 301-854-2987
--         http://www.clark.net/pub/warnock/awww.html
--       As a matter of fact, I _do_ speak for my employer.

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From: "Sam Sun" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 14:30:49 -0500

DOI is an application of the Handle System (http://www.handle.net), which is
a global name service. Every DOI is a Handle in the Handle System, and DOIs
are registered and resolved using Handle System Resolution and
Administration protocols.

The DOI namespace, a sub-namespace of Handle System name space, _is_
heirarchical.  In terms of DOI, this hierarchy is reflected in the DOI
"Prefix", and the way it is assigned or used. The DOI "Prefix" is equivalent
to the Naming Authority in the Handle System, which serves as an
administrative unit for a sub-namespace, and the sub-namespace could in term
define its own sub-namespace, and so on. (It is worth noting that although
the namespace is heirarchical, the resolution protocol is not, so as to
achieve minimum number of round trips, and to ensure global uniqueness.)

Regards,
Sam
[email-masked]

-----Original Message-----
From: Archie <[email-masked]>
To: John C. Mallery <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked] <[email-masked]>; [email-masked]
<[email-masked]>
Date: Thursday, February 26, 1998 6:09 PM
Subject: Re: FYI, AAP DEVELOPS DIGITAL I.D. SYSTEM FOR PUBLICATIONS

---

From: "Archie" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 15:59:03 -0500

>"Prefix", and the way it is assigned or used. The DOI "Prefix" is
equivalent

Thanks.  That clears up one issue.

>achieve minimum number of round trips, and to ensure global uniqueness.)

So, what happens to name resolution times when we get something like 10**N
(pick your favorite stressful value of N) documents in the system?

Archie

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From: "Sam X. Sun" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 02:01:53 -0500

Archie wrote:
>...

Sorry I didn't quite understand your question.  And I guess that you are
asking the total number of round trips required to resolve 10**N (10 to the
power N) number of handles.

The answer to this will depend on how these handles are related. In one
extreme case, if all these handles are registered under the same naming
authority, then the total number of round trips could be 10**N + 1. Another
extreme case could be that all these handles are from different naming
authority, and none of those naming authorities have ever been visited by
the client, then we are talking about a total of 2 * 10**N number of round
trips.

On the other hand, if all these documents are deems to be used together
again and again, the provider could probably create a handle as a reference
to a HTML document, where the HTML document contains all the references (say
URLs) of those documents. The HTML document can be generated
_programmatically_ by resolving handles of these documents. If this is the
case, the client could potentially need only one round trip to get the
information of all those documents.

Regards,
Sam
[email-masked]