Operational characteristics of a harware-based pattern matcher
ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS)
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The Utah Retrieval System Architecture provides an excellent testbed for the development and testing of new algorithms or techniques for information retrieval. URSA™ is a message-based structure capable of running on a variety of system configurations, ranging from a single mainframe processor to a system distributed across a number of dissimilar processors. It can readily support a variety of specialized backend processors, such as high-speed search engines.The architecture divides the components of a text retrieval system into two classes: servers and clients. A triple of servers (index, search, and document access) for each database provide the capabilities normally associated with a retrieval system. Possible clients for these servers include a window-based user interface, whose query language can be easily modified, a connection to a mainframe host processor, or Al-based query modification programs that wish to use the database.Any module in the system can be replaced by a new module using a different algorithm as long as the new module complies with the message formats for that function. In fact, with some care this module switch can occur while the system is running, without affecting the users. A monitor program collects statistics on all system messages, giving information regarding query complexity, processing time for each module, queueing times, and bandwidths between every module.This paper discusses the background of URSA and its structure, with particular emphasis on the features that make it a good testbed for information retrieval techniques.