A New Block-Based Data Distribution Mechanism in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a new paradigm that provides computing, storage and networking services to end users. Data distribution for cloud computing is different from that in traditional content distribution networks in that it has a direct implication on efficiency of using cloud resources. In this paper we propose a new block-based data distribution mechanism for cloud computing. Instead of using the whole file as a unit of delivery, we divide a file into blocks to improve the efficiency. We design a scheduling algorithm to manage the delivery of blocks to all receivers. The novel aspect of the algorithm is that it can achieve constant distribution time no matter how many receivers need to get the file. We further analyze the overhead caused by dividing a file into blocks. The performance results show that our mechanism can significantly reduce the distribution time, compared with the traditional method and a non-block-based method.