Chipotle: A Peer-to-Peer System for Highly Distributed and Fault Tolerant XML Data Management

ATC-NY, in collaboration with Cornell University and Architecture Technology Corporation, will design and build Chipotle, a distributed XML database targeting the needs of the MDA, other DoD operations, and commercial applications. The Chipotle system will be highly resistant to failures, require no centralized control (and thus present no central point of attack), and be highly robust in the face of component and network failure. Scalability and fault tolerance are provided by structuring the database system as a peer-to-peer (P2P) system. Building on previous work at ATC-NY and Cornell, Chipotle improves on existing P2P systems by supporting rich database queries, including XML XPath expressions, and by providing the security needed to enforce access policies and prevent the disclosure of information should a node be compromised. In addition, it will provide load balancing capabilities to handle varying query loads as well as heterogeneous nodes and networks.