Who will maintain the ONS?
EPCglobal has awarded VeriSign a contract to maintain the root ONS directory. But the Object Name Service will handle many more requests than the Web’s Domain Name Service. Therefore, companies will likely maintain ONS servers locally, which will store information for quick retrieval. So a manufacturer may store ONS data from its current suppliers on its own network, rather than pulling the information off the Web site every time a shipment arrives at the assembly plant. The system will also have built-in redundancies. For example, if a server with information on a certain product crashes, ONS will be able to point the RFID middleware to another server where the same information is stored.
