Dynamic routation in distributed environments

In this paper, we address the issues of communication routing and process allocation in an integrated way, the so-called routations. After the definition of a formal framework for distributed systems and their applications, routations can be defined. Existing routing and allocation algorithms are discussed in a unified way, using this framework. This facilitates the basis for a proper comparison of algorithms. We then propose a routation algorithm based on the A* intelligent tree-search algorithm. Although this algorithm yields optimal routations, it is too slow to be used in practice. We therefore developed three heuristics, each again in three variants, that accomplish the same task, however, with far reduced computational effort. We then propose to use the A* algorithm in combination with one of the heuristics in a real distributed environment. In the appendices we describe the pseudo-codes of the introduced algorithms, as well as an experimental, ANSAware-based, distributed system in which the routations take place using the heuristics we developed.