A decision support system methodology for the file allocation problem in distributed computing systems

A new methodology, based on the decision support systems approach to solve data file allocation problems in a distributed computing system is proposed. The methodology allows the designer: (1) to deal with both operating costs and response time considerations simultaneously, (2) to specify a different response time constraint for queries from each node to each file. The suitability and applicability of the proposed technique is established by developing a prototype system for an example problem.