Analyzing the potential of mobile opportunistic networks for big data applications

The advantages brought by opportunistic data delivery make mobile opportunistic networking a promising technology for big data computing. Thus, it is important to study the potential of mobile opportunistic networks in supporting big data applications by analyzing their fundamental data dissemination properties. However, such an analysis is nontrivial as a large dimension of elements may affect the data spreading behavior in mobile opportunistic networks. In this article, we first outline the challenges of analyzing the potential of mobile opportunistic networks for big data applications. Then we survey the state-of-the-art analytical results on data dissemination properties in mobile opportunistic networks. Finally, we summarize our analytical results and present a few open research issues that may foster future research endeavors on mobile opportunistic networks to support big data applications.