METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TIME ESTIMATION AND PROGRESS FEEDBACK ON DISTAL ACCESS OPERATIONS

A method and apparatus for providing time estimates and progress feedback on long-running distal information source access operations. An intermediate server that is "close" to a client workspace creates time estimates and progress information for operations using models of known information sources and an estimated merge processing cost. The model provides information as to how long various operations take for each of the known information sources during predetermined intervals of the day. During the course of interaction with the known information sources, the intermediary server builds the model. The model will take into account a variety of implicit factors including network distance and operation complexity, and explicit factors including time of day and operation type. The present invention will synthesize the model information for multiple information sources when the query is directed to a plurality of information sources. The estimated merge processing cost is processing overhead associated with merging the results obtained for operations over multiple information sources.