BRICKS (software) - BRICKS Software

BRICKS Software

The BRICKS network infrastructure uses the Internet as a backbone, and is made of decentralized BRICKS Nodes (BNode), in order to avoid central points whose failure or overload could stop or slowdown the whole Network. BNodes communicate among each other and use available resources for content and metadata management.

Every BNode knows directly only a subset of other BNodes in the system. However, if a BNode wants to reach another member that is directly unknown to it, it will forward a request to some of its known neighbour BNodes that will deliver the request to the final destination or forward it again. BRICKS users access the system only through a local BNode available at their institution. Hence every user request is primarily sent to the institution's BNode and then the request is routed via other BNodes to the final destination.

Search requests behave like that; the BNode pre-selects a list of BNodes where a search request can be fulfilled, and then the BNode routes it there. When the location of the content is known, e.g. as a result of the query, the BNode is directly contacted.