Design considerations for a large-scale image-based text search engine in historical manuscript collections

This article gives an overview of design considerations for a handwriting search engine based on pattern recognition and high-performance computing, “Monk”. In order to satisfy multiple and often conflicting technological requirements, an architecture is used which heavily relies on high-performance computing, interactivity, and a Posix file-access model for the scientific programmers. The resulting system is able to handle billions of image files, in the order of petabytes of storage capacity, with a single mount point. Monk is operational since the year 2009.