Cluster-Based Repositories and Analysis

We propose to build an Open Analytical Framework to support collaborative, distributed data collection and analysis.The Open Analytical Framework will be an inexpensive, distributed data mining and analysis platform. It emphasizes collaboration throughinformation liquidity and performance through massive scale and parallelization. It is composed of a large distributed ensemble of cooperating data storage nodes (repositories) and applications layered on the resulting uniform data space.We will addressthe problems of information object identity, schema definition, distributed indexing and query, caching and consistency, change notification, and intermittently connected (e.g., mobile) applications. Our proposed solutions revolve around the use of simplelayered data representations (u-forms) and agents to manage the data (shepherds). Our goal is to facilitate the routine sharing of information and analytical insight across cooperating (but independent) organizations to support, for instance, lawenforcement operations. We expect the resulting technology to have numerous government and commercial applications.