I see a problem coming here: how does an unreplicated document (say my
own home page) mane a reference to such a replicated document? If I
have a reference to the closest replica, a user far away who follows
such a link will get pointed to the replica closest to *me*, not
closest to her.
Some possible solutions:
- a translation scheme whereby clients "know" (e.g. from a local
configuration file that may be updated automatically as mirror sites
are added) that information at host X is identical to info at host Y
- a magic string in hostnames that is translated dependent on the
geographical position of the client (e.g.
http://info-cern.closestmirror/...)
- upon first contact with a server, it might respond with "please
try the following mirror site which is closer to you" (this could be
put in HTTP2 I suppose).
This is a real problem with embedding location information in URLs...
--Guido van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam <[email protected]>