The protocol implements the architecture. RWhois Protocol June 1997 2. As a directory service, RWhois is a distributed database, where data is split across multiple servers to keep database sizes manageable. The architecture portion of this document details the concepts upon which the protocol is based and describes its structural elements. Specifically, the architecture is concerned with how the data is split across the different servers.
All data can follow some sort of hierarchy, even if the hierarchy seems somewhat arbitrary.
For example, person names can be arranged into hierarchical groups via geography. Then, a particular name would belong in a town group, a state group, and a country group. However, just given a name, it would be impossible to determine where in the hierarchy it belongs. Therefore, a person name is not lexically hierarchical. However, there are certain types of data whose position in the hierarchy can be determined by deciphering the data itself, for example, phone numbers.