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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mimsy!oddjob!gargoyle!ihnp4!alberta!ncc!lyndon
From: lyndon@ncc.UUCP (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Sendmapentry (was Re: senduuname and patch #5)
Message-ID: <1359@ncc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 15-Mar-87 16:25:01 EST
Article-I.D.: ncc.1359
Posted: Sun Mar 15 16:25:01 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 16-Mar-87 06:36:07 EST
References: <43143@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> <5864@amdahl.UUCP> <575@hao.UCAR.EDU> <1079@csi.UUCP>
Organization: Nexus Computing Corp.,  Edmonton, AB
Lines: 20
Summary: An excellent idea, but lets be careful not to kill the net with redundant information.

The idea of allowing the map maintainers to automagically query
USENET sites for connectivity info seems to make a lot of sense.
There are however a number of sites whose map data changes very
infrequently. Perhaps the proposed control message should
insert a date as the first line of the message body that tells
the receiving site to only send a map update if the modification
date stored in the map is more recent than that in the control
message. This should help reduce the volume of traffic that
would result from these messages to the point where it would be
practical to use this feature on a regular (monthly?) basis.

Of course, none of this helps us obtain data from mail only sites,
nor does it prod the sys admins in any way to keep their map
data current.

-- 
  Lyndon Nerenberg - Nexus Computing Corporation - lyndon@ncc.UUCP
               "Fifty Thou a Year 'll buy a lot a beer"
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