Placement and replication strategies for next generation online data storage Traditionally ,client -server architecture is followed

for the storage of data which centralize the management of data in a few highly reliable servers and provide adequate data security. Typically, the central server computer must be powerful enough to maintain and share resources with the other computers on the network. This requires a substantial cost. The other issue involved with centralized data is the congestion in network since all all queries for resources are directed toward the server. Client-server networks often require a staff with at least a single network administrator to manage and maintain the equipment and the network adding to maintenance woes. Due to above shortcomings , In the past few years, peer-to-peer networks have become an extremely popular mechanism for large-scale content sharing. Unlike traditional client-server applications,which centralize the management of data in a few highly reliable servers, peer-to-peer systems distribute the burden of data storage, computation, communications and administration among thousands of individual client workstations. The popularity of P2P neworks is contributed to low-cost scalability and enhanced availability. Ideally a peer-to-peer system could efficiently multiplex the resources and connectivity of its workstations across all of its users while at the same time protecting its users from transient or persistent failures in a subset of its components. They are robust and selforganizing since they are able to adapt to arrival and departure of nodes with relatively low cost .Due to their potential efficiency, robustness and scalability, the structured P2P networks have been employed to support a variety of applications such as persistent storage.

However,peer-to-peer systems also include overhead in locating content within the network . Current P2P protocols have long worst case query latencies which prevents them from being employed for real time applications. Recent research has shown that P2P network traffic is mostly due to query messages used for locating resources in network .

For design of new online storage above issues in P2P nework has to be resolved. For the reduction of network traffic, efficient algorithms are to be developed for locating data sources efficiently across a large number of participating peers to reduce the overall query traffic. One recent study of a popular peer-to-peer file sharing system found that the majority of peers had application-level availability rates of under 20 percent. As a result, all peer-topeer systems must employ some form of replication to provide acceptable service to their users. Next-generation online storage systems,must implement implement a basic replication strategy that is independent of the user workload. Replication also increases data availability, reduces access latency and network bandwidth utilization ,thereby enhancing system reliability. The best replication strategy should minimize the total response time elapsed in file transfer. Naturally, the larger number of replicas, the better performance we can obtain. However,more replicas could also introduce more communication overhead in the system which may degrade the performance. An optimal replication strategy helps maximize the network resource utilization and in turn minimizes the absolute resource demand.

If given opportunity I would like to design some replication strategies for online storage of data .As, an aspirant I feel that my education background in mathematics and computer science will help me in developing algorithms for optimal replication strategies.