The network is the database

This paper describes the methodology and implementation of a data management system for highly distributed systems, which was built to solve the scalability and reliability problems faced in a wide area postal logistics application developed at Siemens. The core of the approach is to borrow from Internet routing protocols, and their proven scalability and robustness, to build a network-embedded dynamic database index, and to augment schema definition to optimize the use of this index. The system was developed with an eye toward future applications in the area of sensor networks.