Seek binary Data Server

[burkhard burow]

Hello, 

I'm looking for a binary Data Server (DS). PD is preferred, I'm willing to work
with/help expand homegrown code, commercial might be interesting. Here is the
minimum of what I'm looking for:

- I imagine DS to be a demon, which services requests from user applications. 
User applications communicate with DS via simple function calls. e.g. 

ds_load(hv_data_pointer, "HV_DATA", "CURRENT"); 
/* CURRENT can of course be replaced by a date and time of interest. 
   e.g. "900112:092430:84" for the date:time:100th sec. DS would in this case
return the data which is valid at that time. */

i.e. The applications programmer need only know the name of his data, and the
time from which he wants it. I imagine that each version of "HV_DATA" is
stored in a separate file, so that even without DS I still can find my data.


There are lots of bells and whistles that one can imagine:

- DS should know what files exist local-ly, and is able to request data from
DS's running on remote machines. [RPC I guess.]

- DS needn't know anything about the innards of my data, although DS might know
what filters to use to translate the data into a form requested by the user.

- One can request from DS the history of a particular sequence of bytes in the
data.

- DS can understand, in addition to entire data sets, updates to the data by
specifying the byte positions for the update data.

- DS archives all data produced. Options exist so that at time T1 DS throws out
all but the 10th version of each, at time T2 all but the 100th, ...

- ...


Any and all info., especially experience, is welcome. A summary/forwarding of
replies will be available to all who request it.

thank you               INTERNET:  burow%13313.hepnet at csa3.lbl.gov
burkhard