SIRS

Scalable Internet Resource Service

Experiences with overloaded networks as a result of the distribution of popular software packages via public ftp servers were the reason for discussion with prof. dr. Andy Tanenbaum and dr. Maarten van Steen of the Computer Systems Group in the Division Mathematics and Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. This group does fundamental and applied research in the area of distributed systems. Globe, a world-wide distributed system which supports the distribution and replication of objects, is the focus of the research of the group. Within the scope of Globe, a project named Scalable Internet Resource Service (SIRS) has been defined.

The essence of the SIRS-implementation is the encapsulation of a resource (i.e. one or more files) in a Globe distributed object, and subsequently the addition of the most applicable replication and distribution strategy to that object. The development of the necessary adaptations to servers and clients is the main topic of the first part of the SIRS project.

The SIRS-1 project started on December 1, 1998, and its first phase ran until December 1, 1999. The costs of the first phase, € 68.067, were fully subsidised by Stichting NLnet. The results of this first phase were still very much in the alpha stage, but were promising enough to follow up the project with a second phase named SIRS-2, which ran from December 1, 1999 until December 1, 2000.

This second phase consisted of two sub-projects: SIRS/Server, a direct continuation of the SIRS-1 development, and SIRS/GDN, the Globe Distribution Network, a practical application of Globe for the (worldwide) distribution of files, in particular freeware and shareware. The costs of SIRS-2, € 142.941, have been fully subsided again by Stichting NLnet.

SIRS-3 has been defined as the third phase of the SIRS project. Its purpose was to address a number of important issues in the prototype version resulting from SIRS-2, namely security, fault tolerance and management tools. The project plan for SIRS-3 describes these in more detail. This last phase of SIRS ran from 1 January 2001 until 1 February 2002. The costs of SIRS-3, € 145.210, have been fully subsidised again by Stichting NLnet.