A Comparative Study of Replica Placement Strategies in Data Grids

Data Grids are today’s emerging infrastructure providing specialized services on handling large datasets that needs to be transferred and replicated among different grid sites. Data replication is an important technique for data availability and fast access. In this paper we present a comparison of various replication models and techniques employed by some major topologies used in data grid environment. We focus on dynamic strategies for replica placement in tree, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and hybrid architectures. Beside tree model which is being implemented for many Data Grid applications, hybrid and P2P grid models of replication are also emerging for providing scientific communities with better availability and efficient access to massive data.