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The Handle System |
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The Handle System is a general-purpose distributed information system
that provides efficient, extensible, and secure identifier and
resolution services for use on networks such as the Internet.
The Handle System includes an open protocol, a namespace, and a reference
implementation of the protocol. It provides the underlying infrastructure
and services rather than end-user applications. The Handle System protocols enable a
distributed computer system to resolve and store the identification
information (or handles) of digital resources into the elements needed
to locate, access, and otherwise manage names for Internet resources (e.g.,
online documents, websites and pages and other digital objects).
The Handle System was developed by
Dr. Robert Kahn
and his team at the
Corporation for National Research
Initiatives� (CNRI) in Reston, Virginia. Dr. Kahn is a
co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocols and was responsible for originating
DARPA's Internet Program. He is a legend in the field, having won almost
every major award including the 2004 A. M. Turing Award and the US
Government�s 2005 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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Features |
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Support for Internationalized Domain Names
Uses Unicode
(UTF-8) so all languages can be included.
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More Secure
Has built-in
support for Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).
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Easy Administration
Has built-in
administration and management.
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Customizable
Can store any
user-defined
metadata.
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Current Deployments |
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The Handle System provides infrastructure
for several domains, including digital libraries & publishing, network and
identity management. Current Users include:
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International DOI
Foundation, which includes the CrossRef (scholarly journal
consortium), the Office of Publications of the European Community,
MEDRA (Multilingual European DOI Registration Agency), Nielsen
BookData, R.R. Bowker et al and the German National Library of
Science and Technology.
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Defense Virtual
Information Architecture (Defense Technical Information Center DARPA,
CNRI: context sensitive distribution of data and metadata).
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GRID computing (Handle
System - Globus Toolkit Integration Project)
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DSpace - MIT
Libraries/Hewlett-Packard (Digital Repository System)
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National Digital
Library Program (NDLP)
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Los Alamos National
Laboratory
There are currently over 3,500 namespaces
that have been assigned to users and an estimated several hundred
million individual �handles� (identifiers within each namespace).
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