WAIS over Z39.50-1988 (RFC1625)
Original Publication Date: 1994-Jun-01
Included in the Prior Art Database: 2000-Sep-12
Publishing Venue
Internet Society Requests For Comment (RFCs)
Related People
M. St. Pierre: AUTHOR [+7]
Abstract
The network publishing system, Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS), is designed to help users find information over a computer network. The principles guiding WAIS development are:
Network Working Group M. St. Pierre
Request for Comments: 1625 WAIS, Inc.
Category: Informational J. Fullton
CNIDR
K. Gamiel
CNIDR
J. Goldman
Thinking Machines Corp.
B. Kahle
WAIS, Inc.
J. Kunze
UC Berkeley
H. Morris
WAIS, Inc.
F. Schiettecatte
FS Consulting
June 1994
WAIS over Z39.50-1988
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo
does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
this memo is unlimited.
1. Introduction
The network publishing system, Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS),
is designed to help users find information over a computer network.
The principles guiding WAIS development are:
1. A wide-area networked-based information system for searching,
browsing, and publishing.
2. Based on standards.
3. Easy to use.
4. Flexible and growth oriented.
From this basis, a large group of developers, publishers, standards
bodies, libraries, government agencies, schools, and users have been
helping further the WAIS system.
The WAIS software architecture has four main components: the client,
the server, the database, and the protocol. The WAIS client is a
user-interface program that sends requests for information to local
or remote servers. Clients are available for most popular desktop
environments. The WAIS server is a program that services client
requests, and is available on a variety of UNIX platforms. The
server generally runs on a machine containing one or more information
sources, or WAIS databases. The protocol, Z39.50-1988, is used to
connect WAIS clients and servers and is based on the 1988 Version of<...