CSR-PDOS: A Scalable and Self-Organizing System Architecture for Fast and Efficient Information Retrieval in Large-Scale Decentralized Networks

分散网络有两个主要优势：无单点故障和无容量限制。增加的节点越多，网络可以为用户带来的累积计算能力和内容的潜在收益就越大。然而，随着时间的推移，这些分布式资源的数量会急剧增加。因此，一个重要而又具有挑战性的问题是，如何有效地管理资源，并在需要时能够在高度动态的节点成员频繁变化的网络中快速找到它们。许多著作试图解决这个问题，但只是部分地。如果构建在一起，它们可以为用户提供一系列有用的服务。不幸的是，这种组合几乎不可行，因为这些技术中的大多数在系统架构设计方面都有根本的不同。该项目开发了一个可扩展、自组织的统一系统基础设施，并为分散网络的用户提供了一套全面的快速、准确和高效的信息检索服务。该基础设施包含五个组件：(1)通信、(2)索引、(3)搜索、(4)排名/聚合和(5)安全。预期结果包括基础设施的软件实施，以及这些组件的内置技术。开发成果将通过网络、研讨会、出版物和行业合作进行传播。该教育计划旨在显著提高学生在本科生和研究生水平的知识，并为他们未来的职业努力做好准备。该项目适用于部署在科学、商业和国土安全领域的任何大规模分布式信息共享网络，不一而足。

Decentralized networks offer two main advantages: no single point of failure and no capacity limitation. The more nodes added, the more potential gain in accumulative computing power and contents that the network can bring to the users. The amount of these distributed resources, however, grows tremendously over time. As such, an important problem, yet challenging, is how to manage the resources efficiently and be able to find them quickly when necessary in a network that is highly dynamic with frequent node membership changes. Many works attempt to address this problem, but only partially. If built together, they could provide a good set of services useful for the users. Unfortunately, such a combination is hardly feasible as most of these techniques differ fundamentally in system architectural design. This project develops a unified system infrastructure, that is scalable, self-organizing, and facilitates a comprehensive set of fast, accurate, and efficient information retrieval services for the users of decentralized networks. This infrastructure contains five components: (1) communication, (2) indexing, (3) search, (4) ranking/aggregation, and (5) security. The expected outcome includes a software implementation of the infrastructure with built-in technologies for these components. The development results will be disseminated via the Web, seminars, publications, and industrial collaborations. The educational plan is designed to significantly advance students' knowledge, at both undergraduate and graduate levels, and prepare them well for future professional endeavors. The project is applicable to any large-scale distributed information-sharing network deployed in the scientific, commercial, and homeland-security fields, to name some.