Bunyip Information Systems about archie 3.0 -------------------- What is archie? The archie information system is a network-based information tool offering proactive data retrieval and indexing for widely distributed collections of data. The archie Data Gathering Component automates the gathering, indexing and maintenance of information, allowing information providers to offer improved resource discovery and access to information. The archie User Access Component allows your users to locate and access your information using a variety of interfaces and search methods. Given the number of hosts being used as archive sites nowadays, there can be great difficulty in finding needed software in a distributed environment. You may know that the software that you need is out there, but it can sometimes be difficult to find. Perhaps the best known application of the archie system is to maintain this Internet Archives database. The database, already available from a number of service providers across the Internet, currently contains the names of over 2,400,000 files at over 1,000 anonymous FTP archive sites. Using this database, users can rapidly locate needed files without the need to log onto dozens or even hundreds of machines. archie servers offering this database currently receive over 50,000 queries per day. Users can ask archie to search for specific name strings. For example, "prog kcl" would find all occurrences of the string "kcl" and tell you which hosts have entries with this string, the size of the program, its last modification date and where it can be found on the host along with some other useful information. In this example, you could thus find those archive sites that are storing Kyoto Common Lisp. With one central database for all the archive sites we know about, archie greatly speeds the task of finding a specific program on the net. archie also maintains a 'Software Description Database' which consists of the names and descriptions of various software packages, documents and datasets that are kept on anonymous ftp archive sites all around the Internet. The 'whatis' command allows you to search this database. But the archie system is much more than the Internet Archives database. With the latest release, archie has been expanded into a generalized information gathering and distributed database maintenance tool. Using archie, you can build an up-to-date, accurate directory of Internet services, or define new databases and gather entries from across the network. With archie your information collections are updated as often as needed. The archie system has gained wide acceptance and acclaim on the Internet. It is now accepted as a service integral to the needs of the Internet user community. Gateways to the archie system have been built for a number of other information delivery systems, including the Wide Area Information System (WAIS), Gopher and the World Wide Web (W3). A commercially supported version of the archie system is now available to Internet service providers wishing to build, maintain and offer collections of useful information to an Internet community. Send comments, bug reports etc to archie-group@bunyip.com If you have a favourite anonymous ftp site that archie doesn't seem to maintain, or if you have additions or corrections to the Software Description database, send mail to archie-admin@bunyip.com Please note that it is our policy only to maintain information from sites whose system administrators have given their approval. The original archie program was written by Alan Emtage (bajan@bunyip.com) and Bill Heelan (wheelan@cs.mcgill.ca), with some ideas and inspiration provided by Peter Deutsch (peterd@bunyip.com). The current version is a product of Bunyip Information Systems. For more information, send email to "info@bunyip.com".