Domains are structured hierarchically, with Server Clusters forming the lowest level domains and Cache Clusters joining them as higher level domains until a global domain is attained. Information resource names are formed by concatenating domain names starting from the global domain and working down towards the lowest level domain. Instead, only servers and databases are registered. We think this is an unrealistic approach because it would involve registering all the tens or hundreds of millions information resources into a global name space. We would settle for replacing the currently employed server name with the more flexible domain name.
Clients send requests to the proxy at their local domain.
The proxy is then responsible for finding the actual information. If the information is not stored or cached in the local domain, the proxy bumps the request up into a higher level domain. The process continues until either the information has been found in a cache or the proper server has been located. Connection management services provided by the service machine would be used to manage the connections between Cache Clusters as well as between clients and servers. Hypermedia Information Browsing is scheduled to be published in July, 1996.