Internet Draft Aims to Decongest Data Traffic
Indiana University is making available for public use a method to reduce network congestion generated by distributed multimedia database applications. The method, developed jointly by Indiana University and Napster Inc., is in the form of a formal Internet Draft (ID), the format by which organizations can propose better networking practices to the Internet technical community. It is the first step in proposing a Request for Comment (RFC) and ultimately a new Internet operating standard.
When executed, the method described in Indiana University’s ID seeks to optimize the way in which the application running on a computer attempts to find other computers’ files, by searching on the nearest computers first. For more information or to access the ID, visit http://bestpath.iu.edu/internetdraft.txt. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, (812) 855-3911, www.indiana.edu.
This article originally appeared in the 05/01/2000 issue of THE Journal.