Enhancing the storage of mobile nodes through ad hoc storage as a service in MANETs

Abstract

SummaryThe data generation rate has grown explosively with the widespread use of mobile devices in several critical domains, including health care, education, and disaster recovery. This rapid increase in data volume is hindered by data storage restrictions on mobile devices. State‐of‐the‐art mobile computing platforms such as mobile cloud computing work towards providing indefinite storage space and augment mobile data storage by utilizing infinite cloud storage resources. Time Machine, iCloud, Dropbox, and other cloud‐oriented services facilitate the offloading of content. These services require uninterrupted internet connectivity. Low connectivity may induce system failure. Furthermore, network connectivity cannot always be ensured in rural areas and natural disaster–prone areas. In such cases, it would be more efficient for the originator to store a backup of the data in nearby mobile devices. Hence, users look for a storage/backup system in the vicinity. In this paper, we propose an efficient technique to obtain a temporary storage/backup service in areas with low network connectivity by using an ad hoc storage‐as‐a‐service method for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), with the help of nodes that provide temporary storage services to clients. Two types of nodes, namely, storage service providers (SSPs) and storage service requesters (SSRs), form the core of the proposed system. A set of SSRs accesses temporary storage from SSPs. Mobile clients can obtain a reliable storage service from this system. We use simulated experimental modules to analyze our model. We can also use this approach in a network‐disconnected area to demonstrate the practicality of providing a temporary storage service.