A new ant colony optimization based algorithm for data allocation problem in distributed databases

Abstract

The Performance and the efficiency of a distributed database system depend highly on the way data are allocated to the sites. The NP-completeness of the data allocation problem and the large size of its real occurrence, call for employing a fast and scalable heuristic algorithm. In this paper, we address the data allocation problem in terms of minimizing two different types of data transmission across the network, i.e., data transmissions due to site-fragment dependencies and those caused by inter-fragment dependencies. We propose a new heuristic algorithm which is based on the ant colony optimization meta-heuristic, with regards to the applied strategies for query optimization and integrity enforcement. The goal is to design an efficient data allocation scheme to minimize the total transaction response time under memory capacity constraints of the sites. Experimental tests indicate that our algorithm is capable of producing near- optimal solutions within a reasonable time. The results also reveal the flexibility and scalability of the proposed algorithm.