Searchy is a distributed metainformation search engine used to integrate the location of resources (resources may be understood in its widest meaning). It is useful to access different search systems like data base managers, directory services or information sources like local files with an uniform interface.

Actually, Searchy may be seen from several points of view. It may be…

* A distributed metainformation search engine.
* A gateway that performs semantic translations of information.
* The middle tier of a generic three tier (or n-tier) application, with some extra functionalities.
A key point is that Searchy performs the search in semantic terms, and returns the results also in semantic terms using RDF and Dublin Core. It makes Searchy ideal to be integrated in the future semantic web.It is written in Java with the goal to be neutral from a platform point of view and highly scalable. At the moment, its aim is to describe resources, but in a future we want to integrate it better with the semantic web by providing RDF full support, with the huge number of potential applications that it might have. Searchy is highly scalable, it can be used in small environments as long as in big ones. The key of its scalability is that Searchy is in fact a network of independent cooperant agents. This will be added to the search engine section of all the 2004-05 Internet MiniGuides.