Whois and Network Information Lookup Service (WNILS) Minutes November 18, 1992 I. Introduction and Overview Joan Gargano spoke briefly about the impetus for starting the working group and development of the Whois++ application. This was followed by presentations by the developers. II. Architecture of Whois++ Peter Deutsch presented an overview of the Whois++ architecture. Peter described the prototype system, the currently supported query syntax and areas for improvement. III.Centroids Chris Weider provided an overview of the mechanism used to build a distributed directory service called "centroids". Simon Spero continued with a discussion of the underlying theory of centroids which has been used by other groups studying information retrieval issues. IV. Sample Server Jim Fullton presented a brief overview of the Whois++ server developed at CNIDR. Jim describe his system which was built using standard Unix utilities. Response times of 15 seconds to query a database of 30,000 records was reported, however Jim felt significant improvements could be achieved with software designed and coded to optimize the system. Servers for testing are available at CNIDR and UC Davis. It is anticipated about 10 new servers will be in place within a couple of weeks. V. Questions The floor was opened for questions and general discussion of the protocol. VI. Future The Whois++ developers solicited input about desired features. The following work was recommended. 1. A feature to allow servers to pass information about servers that poll them to optimize searching. 2. A description of printer output format. 3. There needs to be a clearinghouse for templates. It was recommended this be performed by CNIDR. 4. Privacy and security features. 5. A method for handling replication of services. 6. Further discussion about usernames and attributes. 7. A method for using synonyms with queries. 8. A method to abort searches and continue searches. 9. Provide the ability to store and pass images. 10. A way to limit the attributes returned by a search. 11. A method for tagging attributes.