A constrained nonlinear 0-1 program for data allocation

This paper analyzes the problem of allocating copies of relations from a global database to the sites of a geographically distributed communication network. The objective of the allocation is to minimize the total cost due to transmissions:generated by queries from the various sites, including queries that access multiple relations. This allocation problem is modeled as a constrained nonlinear 0-1 program. The nonlinear program is linearized and solved using subgradient optimization. Some of the unconstrained quadratic 0-1 subproblems generated during subgradient optimization are solved as maximum flow problems, while the others require implicit enumeration, depending on the nature of the objective function coefficients of the subproblems. Our solution approach is tested extensively an data allocation problems with as many as 100 sites and 20 relations. On a set of randomly generated rest problems our approach was close to two orders of magnitude faster than the general purpose integer programming code OSL. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.