GeoLayer: Towards Low-Latency and Cost-Efficient Geo-Distributed Graph Stores with Layered Graph

Abstract: The inherent connectivity and dependency of graph-structured data, combined with its unique topology-driven access patterns, pose fundamental challenges to conventional data replication and request routing strategies in geo-distributed cloud storage systems. In this paper, we propose GeoLayer, a geo-distributed graph storage framework that jointly optimizes graph replica placement and pattern request routing. We first construct a latency-aware layered graph architecture that decomposes the graph topology into multiple layers, aiming to reduce the decision space and computational complexity of the optimization problem, while mitigating the impact of network heterogeneity in geo-distributed environments. Building on the layered graph, we introduce an overlap-centric replica placement scheme to accommodate the diversity of graph pattern accesses, along with a directed heat diffusion model that captures heat conduction and superposition effects to guide data allocation. For request routing, we develop a stepwise layered routing strategy that performs progressive expansion over the layered graph to efficiently retrieve the required data. Experimental results show that, compared to state-of-the-art replica placement and routing schemes, GeoLayer achieves a 1.34x - 3.67x improvement in response times for online graph pattern requests and a 1.28x - 3.56x speedup in offline graph analysis performance.