Data management issues in mobile ad hoc networks

Research on mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) has become a hot research topic since the middle 1990’s. Over the first decade, most research focused on networking techniques, ignoring data management issues. We, however, realized early the importance of data management in MANETs, and have been conducting studies in this area for 15 years. In this review, we summarize some key technical issues related to data management in MANETs, and the studies we have done in addressing these issues, which include placement of data replicas, update management, and query processing with security management. The techniques proposed in our studies have been designed with deep considerations of MANET features including network partitioning, node participation/disappearance, limited network bandwidth, and energy efficiency. Our studies published in early 2000’s have developed a new research field as data management in MANETs. Also, our recent studies are expected to be significant guidelines of new research directions. We conclude the review by discussing some future directions for research.