The importance of file migration is increasing because of its potential to improve the performance of distributed office, manufacturing and hospital information systems. To encourage research in the file migration problem, the authors summarize accomplishments of researchers of the problem, provide a de tailed comparison of file migration and dynamic file allocation problems, and identify important areas of research to support the development of effective file migration policies. The demand for information services is increasing at an explosive rate. Due to large geographical regions of business operations and external competitive pressures, information services are expected to collect, store, retrieve, process, aggregate and distribute timely information from data generated at geographically remote and dispersed sites. The traditional mode of providing computerized information services in large organizations has been to operate large centralized computer systems, with most of the processing, storage and retrieval of data performed at central sites. Such systems have the disadvantages of high cost and high loads on the centralized computing and communication devices. Consequently, both communication with and processing at the central site have become system bottlenecks, access speeds have slowed down, and the availability and reliability of information services has deteriorated. Advances in communication technologies and the decreasing costs of computers have made distributed computer systems an attractive alternative for satisfying the information needs of large organizations. Distributed computer systems are composed of multiple geographically dispersed computer sites connected through communication networks. Each computer site has its own processing, storage and communication devices as well as the necessary software resources. Appropriate communication network and control protocols enable users and applications to access local and remote system resources in an integrated manner. By taking advantage of resource sharing and load balancing, distributed computer systems offer higher system reliability and
Reference REF discusses and compares various file migration and dynamic file allocation problems.
Dynamic file migration in distributed computer systems
CACM
Computer Science