Distributed data bases for mobile wireless networks – Research issues

Authors:

  • Ulf Sterner
  • Anders Hansson
  • Jan Nilsson

Publish date: 2008-11-10

Report number: FOI-R--2566--SE

Pages: 30

Written in: Swedish

Keywords:

  • distributed databases
  • database structures
  • mobile wireless networks
  • autonomus
  • nodes

Abstract

In order to fulfil the Swedish Armed Forces need of command and control services, in particular at lower tactical levels, a distributed database structure is a key component. A main challenge in the design of such databases is to make them functional also for mobile units relying on mobile wireless networks for their communication. The available communication resources may vary substantially in such networks and nodes or groups of nodes need to act autonomously. Therefore, as a complement to today's database systems, new distributed databases need to be developed. A focus of the design is limited use of the communication resources and flexibility to handle autonomous nodes. The report surveys the area of database design, in particular distributed database design, with the aim to identify the most important research issues. The research issues identified are as follows; Firstly, which distributed database structure is suitable and how is the database updated? Should updates be sent out to all nodes or just a subset of the nodes, and in that case which nodes? The second research issue will depend on the database structure in use and concerns the searching for data; i.e. how do we in an efficient way find the data and how is data consistency maintained?