Global Name System

This lecture delves into the concept of names, exploring how memory addresses, IP addresses, URLs, and email addresses serve as identifiers for various resources. The instructor explains the importance of names in efficient communication and organization within systems, highlighting the role of links as names. The lecture further discusses the hierarchy and scalability of names, emphasizing the significance of private and global names. The instructor introduces the global name service proposed by Butler-Lampson, focusing on its hierarchical structure and fault tolerance through redundancy. The lecture also covers the process of name lookup and updates, detailing the commutativity and idempotency of updates. The system's reliance on caching, timestamps, and expiration dates for consistency is explained, along with the resolution of conflicts in updates.