A hybrid keyword search across peer-to-peer federated databases

The need for Keyword search in databases is suggested both by Web integration with legacy database management system and by dynamic Web publication. However, it sacrifices the inherent meaning of database schema. Web search engines provide clues for resource location on the Web, but have the similar semantic problems. The Semantic Web suggests an ideal solution for the semantic problem on the Web. But due to the need for sophisticated domain definition and lack of unified definitions, many Web pages are not part of the Semantic Web. A hybrid search-combining semantic metadata and keywords-on P2P based federated databases provides meaningful and scalable search on an overlay network across the Internet. This paper describes the design of the combined search for unstructured data linked in metadata, information retrieval from the repository, and peer-to-peer based communication layer.