Enhancements to CAN for the application as distributed data storage system in grids

Currently, there is no distributed data management system for computational grids that provides transparent data distribution and replication. This paper introduces three methods to enhance an algorithm for data distribution and replication from the field of peer-to-peer computing named "content-addressable network". They enable this algorithm to being a basis for a fully transparent distributed data management system for grids. The first enhancement provides multiple dataset queries which allow the user to search for all datasets matching a given combination of key and mask. Another optimization reduces existing query latencies by introducing a system of specifically selected short cuts. The third enhancement enables the algorithm to keep the amount of data stored on a certain node more equally balanced and as a result optimizes the algorithms stability while working with high data fill-levels.