An efficient file transmission algorithm for distributed computing systems

Abstract

In a distributed system, executing a program often requires the access of remote data files. An efficient data transmission strategy is thus important for real-time applications. Since data files may be replicated and their locations are transparent to the executed program, it becomes system's responsibility to select a proper file server such that data can be transmitted in an effective way. In this paper, we consider the scenario that a particular program needs several data files simultaneously for its execution. Each datafile may has replicas across the network. The problem is how to find a collection of file servers and the routing paths such that the data transmission time is minimum. An exhaustive approach could of course find the optimal solution. However if pays for high computation price. We thus proposes a heuristic method. Results obtained from the proposed method are encouraging.