Technical Summary
This specification defines a Uniform Resource Name namespace for
UUIDs (Universally Unique IDentifier), also known as GUIDs (Globally
Unique IDentifier). A UUID is 128 bits long, and requires no central
registration process. One of the main reasons for using UUIDs is that
no centralized authority is required to administer them. As a result,
generation on demand can be automated, and they can be used for a
wide variety of purposes. The UUID generation algorithm described
here supports very high allocation rates: 10 million per second per
machine if necessary, so that they could even be used as transaction
IDs.
Working Group Summary
This document was not the product of an IETF working group.
UUIDs were originally used in the Network Computing System (NCS)
and later in the Open Software Foundation's (OSF) Distributed Computing
Environment. This specification is derived from the latter specification.
There were comments during the IETF Last Call, and the Authors have
addressed those comments.
Protocol Quality
This specification was reviewed for the IESG by Ted Hardie.