An Optimal Replica Relocation Scheme for Improving Service Availability in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

This paper proposes an optimal replica relocation scheme improving service availability in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) that relocates replicas as necessary so that the actual data items are available to the nodes which are in need of them. Since MANET's topology is highly dynamic, data items should be made available to the nodes that are required by them in a minimum distance. The nodes which initially store data may move far because of the dynamic topology and the nodes that are selected for relocation should be nearer to the nodes that are in need of them. Also the nodes which store the replicas may drain out in servicing excessive data access requests. This proposed scheme not only considers the minimum distance parameter, but also considers the vital parameters like storage availability, and residual energy parameters in selecting the node for relocation. The proposed scheme was implemented in NS2 and when compared to the no relocation scheme, our proposed scheme proved to be superior.