Contact Point:

Tom Crecelius ( )

Matthias Bender ( )

Sebastian Michel ( )

Max-Planck Institute for Informatics, Saarbruecken, Germany
  

Technical Contact Points:

Tom Crecelius ( )

Matthias Bender ( )

Sebastian Michel ( )
  

Type of software:

STABLE PROTOTYPE 
  

Descriptive Keywords:

Minerva, Bingo, P2P, Web Search Engine, Focused Crawler
  

Potential Use and Applications:

A user can automatically crawl the web according to her thematic interests in order to create a customized local collection. This collection can be shared with other peers in the network, so that users can execute queries in a distributed way involving a tunable number of peers.
  

General Description:

MINERVA is a P2P Web search engine prototype that envisions a collaboration of autonomous peers. Peers are expected to run a local search functionality on a local index, e.g., created by the integrated focused crawler Bingo!. MINERVA creates synposes that compactly describe the local index and publishes these synopses to a directory, which is physically distributed using a distributed hash table (DHT). When a user is not satisfied with search results from her local engine, she can turn to MINERVA which identifies promising information sourcesfor the query based on these synopses and automatically forwards the query accordingly. Selected remote peers execute the query on their local indexes and return their results to the query initiator, where MINERVA merges the results into a single result list which is displayed to the user.

More details on MINERVA can be found on the Web page
http://www.mpi-sb.mpg.de/departments/d5/software/minerva/index.html
  
and in the following publication:
  
Bender M., Michel S., Parreira J.X. and Crecelius T. 2007. P2P web search: make it light, make it fly. In Proceedings of the 3rd Biennial Conference on Innovative Data System Research (CIDR 2007). Asilomar (USA), 7-10 January 2007. 164-168.
[Electronic proceedings available at http://www.cidrdb.org/2007Proceedings.zip]
  

Technical Description:

Bingo! and MINERVA are implemented in Java 5 and compile platform-independently. By default, both use Apache Derby (Cloudscape) as a common database system to store the local index and the precomputed synopses, but also support external JDBC-compliant database systems. The MINERVA synopses contain per-key statistical information that describe the local index and support different techniques for query routing and result merging. Developers can extend MINERVA by implementing their own routing and merging strategies.

MINERVA uses Past/Pastry to implement the distributed directory, using its network routing and storage functionality to become resilient to network dynamics and node failures.
  

Required User Skills:

Only low technical skills are required.
  

Pre-Requisites for Installation:

Hardware: PC with 512 MB main memory (1 GB recommended),

Software: Operating system: Linux / Windows
  

Conditions of Use:

Copyright by Max-Planck Institute for Informatics, Department for Databases and Information Systems, headed by Prof. Dr. Gerhard Weikum, Stuhlsatzenhausweg 85, D-66123 Saarbruecken, Germany, Email:  

THESE INFORMATIONS ARE PROVIDED WITHOUT ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES.IN NO EVENT SHALL THE DATABASE AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH GROUP BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THESE RECOMMENDATIONS, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

• Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, is permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
• The name "BINGO!" must not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without prior permission from Prof. Weikum. This does not apply to add-on libraries or tools that work in conjunction with BINGO! framework.
• Prof. Weikum may publish revised and/or new versions of the license from time to time. Each version will be given a distinguishing version number. Once covered code has been published under a particular version of the license, you may always continue to use it under the terms of that version. You may also choose to use such covered code under the terms of any subsequent version of the license published. No one other than Prof. Weikum has the right to modify the terms applicable to covered code created under this License.
• Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following acknowledgment:
• "This software includes BINGO!, freely available from:
  http://www.mpi-sb.mpg.de/units/ag5/software/".
    

Additional information:

The MINERVA software can be downloaded from the URL
http://www.mpi-sb.mpg.de/departments/d5/software/minerva/index.html .

To cite MINERVA, please use the following reference:
  
Bender M., Michel S., Parreira J.X. and Crecelius T. 2007. P2P web search: make it light, make it fly. In Proceedings of the 3rd Biennial Conference on Innovative Data System Research (CIDR 2007). Asilomar (USA), 7-10 January 2007. 164-168.

[Electronic proceedings available at http://www.cidrdb.org/2007Proceedings.zip]

The development of MINERVA has been supported by the EU Integrated Project DELIS and the EU Network of Excellence DELOS.