Information dissemination in partitionable mobile ad hoc networks

Ad-hoc wireless networks have no wired component, and may have unpredictable mobility pattern. Such networks can get partitioned and reconnected several times. One possible approach for information dissemination in such networks is to replicate information at multiple nodes acting as repositories, and employ quorum based strategies to update and query information. We propose three such strategies that also use local knowledge about the reachability of repositories to judiciously select quorums. The primary goal is high availability of information in the face of network partitioning. We also consider four policies to determine the appropriate time to perform updates. Experimental results indicate that a hybrid information management strategy and an absolute connectivity-based update trigger policy are most suited for partitionable ad-hoc networks