To:
michaelm@netsol.com
Cc:
William Tan <william.tan@i-dns.net>, Bill Manning <bmanning@isi.edu>, ietf-provreg@cafax.se
From:
George Belotsky <george@register.com>
Date:
Mon, 12 Mar 2001 16:31:29 -0500
Content-Disposition:
inline
In-Reply-To:
<20010312150825.H2702@bailey.dscga.com>; from michael@bailey.dscga.com on Mon, Mar 12, 2001 at 03:08:25PM -0500
Sender:
owner-ietf-provreg@cafax.se
User-Agent:
Mutt/1.2.5i
Subject:
Re: Unique handle generation
MM has brought up a valid limitation of UUID-style identifiers for doing lookups. Unfortunately, MM's observation also applies to any constant identifier -- not just UUIDs. If the handle contains information on its location, and its location changes, the handle must also change. If we wanted to store handles, so that we can access the objects later no matter where they got moved to in the meantime, then MM's point becomes a serious consideration. On the other hand, if the handles were used to specify operations on objects where the caller already knew the location(s), then we are still fine. Examples of such operations are transfers, deletions, changes to contact information, etc. MM, can you think of a solution to this problem? It may be possible to use DNS for resolving handles, but this gets back to most of the drawbacks of operating a handle registry. George. On Mon, Mar 12, 2001 at 03:08:25PM -0500, Michael Mealling wrote: > On Tue, Mar 13, 2001 at 04:01:33AM +0800, William Tan wrote: > > > Yup... Thats pretty much my take as well. > > > #1 has not worked well > > > #2 is ... operationally challenging ... :) > > > #3 might be the most fun to work on. > > > > I'm for the idea of uuid-like hashes. Readability has to be sacrificed, I > > don't see any way out. However, handles may be hidden from the end users, > > so it might not be an issue after all. > > You not only sacrifice readability but you also sacrifice delegated resolution. > A flag namespace such as UUIDs would require either a single large > database or a lookup would have to be sent to every potential object > holder to see who had it.... > > -MM > > -- > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Michael Mealling | Vote Libertarian! | www.rwhois.net/michael > Sr. Research Engineer | www.ga.lp.org/gwinnett | ICQ#: 14198821 > Network Solutions | www.lp.org | michaelm@netsol.com -- ----------------------------- George Belotsky Senior Software Architect Register.com, inc. george@register.com 212-798-9127 (phone) 212-798-9876 (fax)