Accessibility algorithm based on site availability to enhance replica selection in a data grid environment

Abstract

A data grid functions as a scalable base for grid services to manage data files and their scattered replicas around the world. The principal objective of grid services is to support various data grid applications (jobs) as well as projects. Replica selection is an essential high-level service that selects a Grid location which verifies the shortest response time for the users' jobs among numerous different locations. In the grid environment, estimating response time precisely is not a simple task. Existing replica selection algorithms consume high response time to retrieve replicas because of miss-estimating replicas transfer times. This paper proposes a novel replica selection algorithm that considers site availability in addition to data transfer time. Site availability has not been addressed in previous efforts in the same context this paper does. Site availability is a new factor that can be utilized to estimate response time more accurately. Selecting an unavailable site or selecting a site with insufficient time will likely lead to disconnection. This in turn will require shifting to another site to resume the download or to start the download from scratch depending on the fault tolerance mechanism. Simulation results demonstrate that the performance of the new algorithm is proved to be better than the existing algorithms mentioned in literature.