Optimal file allocation and report assignment in distributed information

Distributed database systems is a current design practice in database architecture. These systems are used by corporations that are served by a network of computers. In this research, the authors model the problem of allocation of copies of files and the assignment of reports to sites in a distributed computer network. This is a 0-1 integer programming problem, and they present optimal and heuristic solution procedures in this article. The authors develop their underlying theory and present computational results. An application in which the proposed algorithms have been used to solve the design problem is presented. The results show that the proposed methodology is viable and efficient in solving real-world problems, and could provide significant savings in cost over a centralized design. The authors also present extensions of this research and directions for future investigations in this area.