Prototyping a multi-root ONS

Abstract

The Object Naming System (ONS) is a central lookup service used in the EPCglobal network for retrieving location information about a specific Electronic Product Code (EPC). This centralized solution lacks scalability and fault tolerance and encounters some political issues. We present the design principles of a fully-distributed multi-root solution for ONS lookup service. In distributed systems, the problem of providing a scalable location service requires a dynamic mechanism to associate identification and location. We design, prototype, and evaluate PRONS, a solution based in a distributed hash table (DHT) for the multi-root problem. We show that PRONS achieves significant performance levels while respecting a number of neutrality requirements.