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Main Authors: Zuo, Tianyu, Tang, Xueyan, Lee, Bu Sung, Cai, Jianfei
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.24098
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author Zuo, Tianyu
Tang, Xueyan
Lee, Bu Sung
Cai, Jianfei
author_facet Zuo, Tianyu
Tang, Xueyan
Lee, Bu Sung
Cai, Jianfei
contents This paper studies an online cost optimization problem for distributed storage and access. The goal is to dynamically create and delete copies of data objects over time at geo-distributed servers to serve access requests and minimize the total storage and network cost. We revisit a recent algorithm in the literature and show that it does not have a competitive ratio of $2$ as claimed by constructing a counterexample. We further prove that no deterministic online algorithm can achieve a competitive ratio bounded by $2$ for the general cost optimization problem. We develop an online algorithm and prove that it achieves a competitive ratio of $\max\{2, \min\{γ, 3\}\}$, where $γ$ is the max/min storage cost ratio among all servers. Examples are given to confirm the tightness of competitive analysis. We also empirically evaluate algorithms using real object access traces.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_24098
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On Competitiveness of Dynamic Replication for Distributed Data Access
Zuo, Tianyu
Tang, Xueyan
Lee, Bu Sung
Cai, Jianfei
Data Structures and Algorithms
This paper studies an online cost optimization problem for distributed storage and access. The goal is to dynamically create and delete copies of data objects over time at geo-distributed servers to serve access requests and minimize the total storage and network cost. We revisit a recent algorithm in the literature and show that it does not have a competitive ratio of $2$ as claimed by constructing a counterexample. We further prove that no deterministic online algorithm can achieve a competitive ratio bounded by $2$ for the general cost optimization problem. We develop an online algorithm and prove that it achieves a competitive ratio of $\max\{2, \min\{γ, 3\}\}$, where $γ$ is the max/min storage cost ratio among all servers. Examples are given to confirm the tightness of competitive analysis. We also empirically evaluate algorithms using real object access traces.
title On Competitiveness of Dynamic Replication for Distributed Data Access
topic Data Structures and Algorithms
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.24098