Stands for “Wide Area Information Server.”
WAIS (pronounced “ways”) was a client-server database search system launched in 1990 earlier than the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web. It listed the contents of databases situated on a number of servers and made them searchable over networks, together with the Internet. Text searches of the databases have been ranked by relevance, the place recordsdata with more key phrase hits are listed first.
As the net grew in recognition, WAIS utilization declined and finally light into obsolescence. The service has now been utterly changed by trendy search engines like google and yahoo.
How WAIS Functioned
A central server referred to as the Directory of Servers saved and listed a database of different publicly-available databases. Since information storage was restricted by the know-how of the day, databases have been distributed amongst a number of servers. To conduct a WAIS search, one would join through telnet to a server operating a WAIS consumer or set up and run their very own consumer. Once linked to the Directory of Servers, a WAIS consumer might browse numerous distributed databases, every targeted on a particular subject (normally an instructional self-discipline, akin to historical past, biology, or social sciences).
WAIS was additionally widespread as a approach to seek for textual content inside particular person Gopher servers. Modern search engines like google and yahoo as a approach to shortly discover related info have been impressed by WAIS. As the World Wide Web caught on and supplanted Gopher servers, WAIS declined in recognition.
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