X-Git-Url: http://jsfdemo.indexdata.com/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=doc%2Fintroduction.xml;h=b9a68d2e4c9001cd6799715fd9f7d42650d090b8;hb=79e9818dfb6b9a0a04bdd6bc6467c8dae3b8f493;hp=645c0aa635a7e0a4438e86bc5cf6f93a7114071b;hpb=4fe772289b1ab968655c27b144d08fc69c113fd9;p=idzebra-moved-to-github.git diff --git a/doc/introduction.xml b/doc/introduction.xml index 645c0aa..b9a68d2 100644 --- a/doc/introduction.xml +++ b/doc/introduction.xml @@ -1,50 +1,49 @@ - + Introduction Overview - The Zebra - system is a fielded free-text indexing and retrieval engine with a - Z39.50 front-end. You can use our various toolkits or any commercial - or free-ware Z39.50 client to access data stored in Zebra. + is a high-performance, general-purpose structured text + indexing and retrieval engine. It reads structured records in a + variety of input formats (eg. email, XML, MARC) and provides access + to them through a powerful combination of boolean search + expressions and relevance-ranked free-text queries. - - - FIXME - not a "first step" but a part of a complete system! -H - - + - The Zebra server is our first step towards the development of a fully - configurable, open information system. Eventually, it will be paired - off with a powerful Z39.50 client to support complex information - management tasks within almost any application domain. We're making - the server available now because it's no fun to be in the open - information retrieval business all by yourself. We want to allow - people with interesting data to make their things - available in interesting ways, without having to start out - by implementing yet another protocol stack from scratch. + Zebra supports large databases (tens of millions of records, + tens of gigabytes of data). It allows safe, incremental + database updates on live systems. Because Zebra supports + the industry-standard information retrieval protocol, Z39.50, + you can search Zebra databases using an enormous variety of + programs and toolkits, both commercial and free, which understand + this protocol. Application libraries are available to allow + bespoke clients to be written in Perl, C, C++, Java, Tcl, Visual + Basic, Python, PHP and more - see + the ZOOM web site + for more information on some of these client toolkits. - + - This document is an introduction to the Zebra system. It will tell you - how to compile the software, and how to prepare your first database. - It also explains how the server can be configured to give you the + This document is an introduction to the Zebra system. It explains + how to compile the software, how to prepare your first database, + and how to configure the server to give you the functionality that you need. - - If you find the software interesting, you should visit the - - Zebra web site, where you can join the + If you use Zebra, you should visit its + web site, + where you can join the mailing-list by sending email to + ### zebra-subscribe@mailman.indexdata.dk @@ -53,7 +52,7 @@ Features - This is a list of some of the most important features of the + This is an overview of some of the most important features of the system. @@ -62,7 +61,7 @@ - Supports large databases - files for indices, etc. can be + Supports large databases - files for indexes, etc. can be automatically partitioned over multiple disks. @@ -107,7 +106,8 @@ Can import the data into Zebras own storage, or just refer to - external files (html pages). + external files (good for building indexes of "live" + collections). @@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ - Protocol support: + Z39.50 protocol support: @@ -147,7 +147,6 @@ Protocol facilities: Init, Search, Retrieve, Delete, Browse and Sort. - FIXME - Itemupdate. (Remove delete until that time, confuses people) -H @@ -186,81 +185,102 @@ - - - Some variant support (not fully implemented yet). - FIXME - Test if complete enough - is it worth mentioning at all -H - - - + + Applications + + Zebra has been deployed in numerous applications, in both the + academic and commercial worlds, in application domains as diverse + as bibliographic information, geospatial, ### (Help, guys!) + + + Notable applications include the following: + + + + DADS - the DTV Article Database Service + + DADS is a huge database of more than ten million records, totally + over ten gigabytes of data. The records are metadata about academic + journal articles, primarily scientific; about 10% of these + metadata records link to the full text of the articles they + describe, a body of about a terabyte of information (although the + full text is not indexed.) + + + It allows students and researchers at DTU (###) to find and order + articles from multiple databases in a single query. The database + contains literature on all engineering subjects. It's available + on-line through a web gateway at + http://www.dtv.dk/search/index_e.htm + though currently only to registered users. + + + + + Various web indexes + + Zebra has been used by a variety of institutions to construct + indexes of large web sites, typically in the region of tens of + millions of pages. In this role, it functions somewhat similarly + to the engine of google or altavista, but for a selected intranet + or subset of the whole Web. + + + ### examples, details and numbers, please! + + + + Future Work These are some of the plans that we have for the software in the near and far future, approximately ordered after their relative importance. - Items marked with an - asterisk will be implemented before the - last beta release. - FIXME - What are the current plans? - - - *Complete the support for variants. - FIXME - who cares -H - - - *Finalize the data element include facility - to support multimedia data elements in records. + Improved support for XML in search and retrieval. Eventually, + the goal is for Zebra to pull double duty as a flexible + information retrieval engine and high-performance XML + repository. - Add more sophisticated relevance ranking mechanisms. - Add support for soundex and stemming. - Add relevance feedback support. + Access to search engine through SOAP/RPC API to allow the + construction of applications without requiring Z39.50 tools. - Complete EXPLAIN support. + Finalisation, documentation of the Zebra API. Consider + exposing the API through SOAP as well (allowing updates, + database management). - Add support for very large records by implementing segmentation and/or - variant pieces. + Improved free-text searching. We're first and foremost octet jockeys and + we're actively looking for organisations or people who'd like + to contribute experience in relevance ranking and text + searching. - - - Support the Item Update extended service of the protocol. - - - - - - We want to add a management system that allows you to - control your databases and configuration tables from a graphical - interface. - -