Versioning a full-text information retrieval system

Abstract

In this paper, we present an approach to the incorporation of object versioning into a distributed full-text information retrieval system. We propose an implementation based on “partially versioned” index sets, arguing that its space overhead and query-time performance make it suitable for full-text IR, with its heavy dependence on inverted indexing. We develop algorithms for computing both historical queries and time range queries and show how these algorithms can be applied to a number of problems in distributed information management, such as data replication, caching, transactional consistency, and hybrid media repositories.