Genetic algorithm based approach for file allocation on distributed systems

One of the important features of distributed computing systems (DCSs) is the potential of high reliability. When the hardware configuration of a DCS is fixed, the system reliability mainly depends on the allocation of various resources. One of the important resources used in a DCS are various files. In this paper, we have developed a reliability oriented file allocation scheme for distributed systems. In this scheme various files are allocated to different nodes of a DCS so that the reliability of executing a program which requires files from remote node(s) is maximized. Several variations of this problem are solved to illustrate the Genetic Algorithm based solution approach. The paper also provides the relation between degree of redundancy of files and the maximum achievable reliability of executing a program. The proposed method is compared with optimal solutions to demonstrate the accuracy of the solution obtained from Genetic Algorithm based methodology.