Discrete particle swarm optimization algorithms for two variants of the static data segment location problem

摘要

We consider the static data segment location problem in information networks. This problem was introduced by Sen et al. (Comput Oper Res, 62:282-295 2015). We consider the problem of optimally locating large volumes of digital content that is accessed via a distributed network. A database is pre-partitioned into multiple segments and the problem is one of placing these segments at servers located in different regions. We need to jointly consider four specific subproblems: (1) the problem of locating servers in the network, (2) the problem of allocating specific data segments to each of the servers, (3) the problem of assigning users to the servers based on their query patterns, and, (4) routing queries through the network. We consider two variants of this problem depending on the topology of the network through which the servers are connected: a mesh topology and a tree topology. In this paper, we develop a solution approach based on a discrete particle swarm optimization approach. We demonstrate the superiority of our approach by comparing its performance against solutions to benchmark instances obtained previously using a simulated annealing approach (Networks, 68(1):4-22 2016b).