MRA*: Parallel and Distributed Path in Large-Scale Graph Using MapReduce-A* Based Approach

In this paper, we present a contribution for the Single Source Shortest Path Problem (SSSPP) in large-scale graph with A* algorithm. A* is one of the most efficient graph traversal algorithm because it is driven by a heuristic which determines the optimal path. A* approach is not efficient when the graph is too large to be processed due to exponential time complexity. We propose a MapReduce-based approach called MRA*: MapReduce-A* which consists to combine the A* algorithm with MapReduce paradigm to compute the shortest path in parallel and distributed environment. We perform experiments in a Hadoop multi-node cluster and our results prove that the proposed approach outperforms A* algorithm and reduces significantly the computational time.