The Challenges of Merging Two Similar Structured Overlays: A Tale of Two Networks

Structured overlay networks is an important and interesting primitive that can be used by diverse peer-to-peer applications. Multiple overlays can result either because of network partitioning or (more likely) because different groups of peers build such overlays separately before coming in contact with each other and wishing to coalesce the overlays together. This paper is a first look into how multiple such overlays (all using the same protocols) can be merged - which is critical for usability and adoption of such an internet-scale distributed system. We elaborate how two networks using the same protocols can be merged, looking specifically into two different overlay design principles: (i) maintaining the ring invariant and (ii) structural replications, either of which are used in various overlay networks to guarantee functional correctness in a highly dynamic (membership changes) environment. Particularly, we show that ring based networks can not operate until the merger operation c...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: EURONGI
• Authors: Anwitaman Datta, Karl Aberer
• Keywords: Computer Networks, EURONGI 2006, Multiple Overlays, Overlay Networks, Overlays