Resource-driven resource location

A general solution for locating resources within a local area network using multicasting is presented. The basic idea is to map resource attributes to multicast addresses so that a machine joins a multicast address group only if it has the corresponding resource attribute. Servers on each machine dynamically join and leave multicast addresses as the resources on the machine change. Clients seeking information send a message to the corresponding address where, in the ideal case, a machine receives a request only when it contains the requested information about the resource. The approach is to build a platform on which queries for distributed information can be efficiently carried out. The authors use a general resource query language that can be used to request information about resources using one or more resource attributes. The key idea is that the resource location process is driven by the resource request, as the query itself is mapped to an underlying multicast address for delivery. The mechanism worked well in initial performance testing