Optimal algorithms and approximation algorithms for replica placement with distance constraints in tree networks

In this paper, we study the problem of replica placement in tree networks subject to server capacity and distance constraints. The client requests are known beforehand, while the number and location of the servers are to be determined. The Single policy enforces that all requests of a client are served by a single server in the tree, while in the Multiple policy, the requests of a given client can be processed by multiple servers, thus distributing the processing of requests over the platform. For the Single policy, we prove that all instances of the problem are NP-hard, and we propose approximation algorithms. The problem with the Multiple policy was known to be NP-hard with distance constraints, but we provide a polynomial time optimal algorithm to solve the problem in the particular case of binary trees when no request exceeds the server capacity

Data Replication Strategies with Performance Objective in Data Grid Systems: A Survey

Replicating for performance constitutes an important issue in large-scale data management systems. In this context, a significant number of replication strategies have been proposed for data grid systems. Some works classified these strategies into static vs. dynamic or centralised vs. decentralised or client vs. server initiated strategies. Very few works deal with a replication strategy classification based on the role of these strategies when building a replica management system. In this paper, we propose a new replication strategy classification based on objective functions of these strategies. Also, each replication strategy is designed according to the data grid topology for which it was proposed. We point out the impact of the topology on replication performance although most of these strategies have been proposed for a hierarchical grid topology. We also study the impact of some factors on performance of these strategies, e.g. access pattern, bandwidth consumption and storage capacity

Replica placement in peer-to-peer systems

In today’s distributed applications, replica placement is essential since moving the data in the vicinity of an application will provide many benefits. The increasing requirements of data for scientific applications and collaborative access to these data make data placement even more important. Until now, replication is one of the main mechanisms used in distributed data whereby identical copies of data are generated and stored at various distributed sites to improve data access performance and data availability. Most work considers file’s popularity as one of the important parameters taken into consideration when designing replica placement strategies. However, this thesis argues that a combination of popularity and affinity files are the most important parameters which can be used in decision making whilst improving data access performance and data availability in distributed environments. A replica placement mechanism called Affinity Replica Placement Mechanism (ARPM) is proposed focusing on popular files and affinity files. The idea of ARPM is to improve data availability and accessibility in peer-to-peer (P2P) replica placement strategy. A P2P simulator, PeerSim, was used to evaluate the performance of this dynamic replica placement strategy. The simulation results demonstrated the effectiveness of ARPM hence provided a proof that ARPM has contributed towards a new dimension of replica placement strategy that incorporates the affinity and popularity of files replicas in P2P systems