Job scheduling and dynamic data replication in data grid environment

Data Grid is a geographically distributed environment that deals with large-scale data-intensive applications. Effective scheduling in Grid can reduce the amount of data transferred among nodes by submitting a job to a node, where most of the requested data files are available. Data replication is another key optimization technique for reducing access latency and managing large data by storing data in a wisely manner. In this paper, two algorithms are proposed: first, a novel job scheduling algorithm called Combined Scheduling Strategy (CSS) that considers the number of jobs waiting in queue, the location of required data for the job, and computational capability; second, a dynamic data replication strategy called Dynamic Hierarchical Replication Algorithm (DHRA) that improves file access time. DHRA stores each replica in an appropriate site, i.e., appropriate site in the requested region that has the highest number of access for that particular replica. Also, it can minimize access latency by selecting the best replica when various sites hold replicas of datasets. The simulation results demonstrate the proposed replication and scheduling strategies give better performance compared to the other algorithms.