An information storage space and retrieval system (ISRS) is a community with an integrated user interface that facilitates the creation, looking around, and modification of saved information. An ISRS is typically a peer-to-peer ( P2P ) system operated and maintained by personal individuals or independent organizations, but accessible to most people. Some, but not all, ISRSs are accessed from the Internet. (The largest ISRS on earth may be the online it self.)
Characteristics of an ISRS consist of lack of centralization, graceful degradation in the case of hardware failure, and capacity to rapidly conform to changing demands and sources. The lack of centralization really helps to make certain that catastrophic data loss will not occur because of hardware or system failure, or due to the tasks of destructive hackers. Graceful degradation is provided by redundancy of information and programming among multiple computers. The physical and electronic variety of an ISRS, along with the existence of multiple working systems, enhances robustness, flexibility, and adaptability. (These traits may cause a certain amount of chaos.) Besides these features, some ISRSs provide anonymity, at least in theory, to contributors and users of the information.
A big change between an ISRS and a database administration system ( DBMS ) is the fact that an ISRS is supposed for public use, while a DBMS is likely to be proprietary, with access privileges restricted to authorized organizations. Furthermore, an ISRS, having no central administration, is less well-organized than a DBMS.
