An Optimized Replica Allocation Algorithm Amidst of Selfish Nodes in MANET

Data replication is performed in mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) to improve data availability in presence of network partition due to high mobility rate of nodes. Replication helps to improve data availability by making multiple copies of same data on several nodes. Various techniques have been proposed in the literature for data replication in MANET. Since mobile nodes are characterized by limited memory space, computing capacity, constrained bandwidth and limited battery power, they extend less or no cooperation in participating replica allocation. Several approaches have been proposed in the literature to handle selfishness among nodes in replica allocation. But the proposed approaches consist of several modules to identify selfish nodes, elimination of selfish nodes, updating selfish features and finding the non selfish nodes to allocate a data replica. Existing replica allocation algorithms achieves better performance in allocating replica, but it consumes more time to allocate replica and the number of messages transmitted in the network during replica allocation. We propose a light weight replica allocation algorithm with reduced replica allocation time and reduced number of messages involved during replica allocation. We have analyzed the existing algorithm for replication in MANET and presented optimizations in the steps involved so that the overall replica allocation time and the messages involved are reduced to a large extent. We suggest the usage of Fisheye state routing protocol along with the replication algorithm that finds the hop count by which a node is connected from the other node. We have formulated a mathematical model to illustrate the benefits of the proposed approach and performed a simulation in MATLAB. The results obtained show a significant reduction in replica allocation time and the amount of messages involved in performing replica allocation compared to the existing algorithms.