Handling spatial data in distributed environments

Handling spatial data in distributed environments is an intriguing issue. We consider autonomous sites of an overlay network that are bound to specific spatial information. We assume that each site has partial knowledge of the overlay. Actually, the sites are aware of and can communicate with some other sites, according to the spatial data to which they are bound to. We are interested in routing queries about spatial data in such overlays, solely by exploiting local knowledge on sites, i.e. based on locality and directionality in space. For such a system, we explore the parameters that can make search for any spatial information realizable and efficient. In this work we focus on the management of grid-partitioned space. In such a system there is a necessity for a mechanism that provides even knowledge of space to each site of the overlay. We investigate two different ways to define the directions of grid knowledge on each site and we propose a new distance metric. Moreover, we consider a new locality function that is specifically constructed in order to achieve even knowledge of space towards all directions. Furthermore, we present an experimental study that evaluates the theoretical propositions and verifies the theoretical results.