From: "Thomas Dowling" <tdowl...@ohiolink.edu>
You can define differences between meta-, federated, and broadcast search,
but
every discussion on the topic will be punctuated by people asking, "Wait,
what's the difference again?"
Leaving aside metasearch and broadcast search (terms invented more recently)
it is a shame if "federated" has really lost its distinction
from"distributed". Historically, a federated database is one that
integrates multiple (autonomous) databases so it is in effect a virtual
distributed database, though a single database. I don't think that's a
hard concept and I don't think it is a trivial distinction.
--Ray
