OPTIMAL REDESIGN POLICIES TO SUPPORT DYNAMIC PROCESSING OF APPLICATIONS ON A DISTRIBUTED RELATIONAL DATABASE SYSTEM

An application processing center consists of a set of well-defined, we ll-designed and well-tested applications that are dynamically executed over a period of time. We assume that there is a set of candidate dis tributed database designs each of which is optimal for some applicatio ns. The random execution of applications on a distributed database des ign is modeled as a discrete Markov process, and the problem of select ing the candidate design for each execution of an application is solve d by using Sequential Markovian Decision Process analysis to generate an optimal redesign policy vector. The scope of the methodology develo ped in this paper is applicable to environments similar to application processing centers. The viability of this methodology is illustrated by means of a case study conducted at Georgia Institute of Technology. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd