I found LinkedIn profiles for Sunil Sarin, Mark Dewitt, and Ronni Rosenberg who all worked at CCA during this time period.
I've gone ahead and sent them each a message asking if they might be able to make the paper available.
If you'd like to get in contact with them yourself and are having trouble finding their LinkedIn, shoot me an email and I'll be happy to provide you links.
> Yes, I was involved, 35 years ago! I believe it was an internal CCA paper. I don't have a copy and I have no idea how to get it. Sorry about that. It does seem to be the earliest reference to "shard" in the DB context. (The other early reference pointed to in Wikipedia is from much later, 1997.)
> Fortunately, you need not go back 35 years to read about sharding; it's easy to get current info. Cheers.
I've now sent a message to Andy Youniss, CEO of Rocket Software to see if he can help.
Sunil Sarin, Mark DeWitt, and Ronni Rosenberg, "Overview of SHARD: A System for Highly Available Replicated Data," Technical Report 162, Xerox Advanced Information Technology (May 1988).
2. Per Wikipedia[1] Crowntek sold Computer Corporation of America's Advanced Information Technology division to Xerox Corporation in 1988.
To me this suggests that it was the "Advanced Information Technology division" specifically which would have had the paper in question, and that bit of CCA wound up with Xerox.
That said, it can't hurt to reach out anybody connected to this in any way. You never know who will wind up "knowing a guy who knows a gal, who knows a ..." or whatever.
I also sent a note to another former Computer Corporation of America employee that I found on LinkedIn. I don't know them personally, but we live near each other and have some common connections, so maybe they will at least receive my unsolicited message with some favor.
FWIW, I did get a response from the individual mentioned above. However they were unable to help with finding a copy of the paper. The search continues...
Someone who isn't me is getting in touch with a computer science librarian at a top 10 university about this paper. I'll update here with whatever I (don't) learn.
I've gone ahead and sent them each a message asking if they might be able to make the paper available.
If you'd like to get in contact with them yourself and are having trouble finding their LinkedIn, shoot me an email and I'll be happy to provide you links.