Globe is a wide-area distributed system in which an object can be located through its location-independent identifier. This is done by means of a worldwide location service. In contrast to comparable services, the approach that is followed in Globe allows objects to be highly mobile, replicated, or physically distributed. In addition, our algorithms adapt dynamically to an object’s behavior, resulting in an efficient and above all, scalable approach. The algorithms for updating and looking up an object’s location are expressed as high-level operations on a worldwide search tree. We have designed and implemented a middleware layer providing all the necessary network communication. In this paper, we show that such a layer hardly introduces any additional overhead. The important consequence is that our location service can be designed and implemented at a high level of abstraction. Compared to the design and implementation of comparable worldwide services, this approach is quite unique
