Design issues of a file server for multimedia documents

This paper summarizes the results of the first year of a pilot project dealing with the filing and retrieval of multimedia (or mixed-mode) information. A file server for such objects would operate in a network environment where other devices on the network, such as user workstations, are the source of requests concerning document creation, modification and retrieval. The design of the file server is influenced by two types of issues: those relevant to the entire office information system, of which the server is a single component, and those concerning only the file server. In the first category we have studied document representation, the server interface, and the expression of file server operations in the user interface on workstations. In the second category we have concentrated on document storage strategies, query processing, and access and indexing methods. Considerable attention has been given to flexible retrieval with queries on arbitrary document content rather than keywords or document descriptors.