Maintaining replicas in unstructured P2P systems

Replication is widely used in unstructured peer-to-peer systems to improve search or achieve availability. We identify and solve a subclass of replication problems where each object is associated with a maintainer node, and its replicas should only be available as long as its maintainer is part of the network. Such requirement can be found in various applications, e.g., when objects are directory lists, service lists, or subscriptions of a publish/subscribe system. We provide maintainers with proven guarantees on the number of replicas, in spite of network churn and crash failures. We also tackle the related problems of changing the number of replicas, updating replicas, balancing storage load in a heterogeneous network, and eliminating replicas left by crashing maintainers. Our algorithm is based on probabilistic methods and is simple to implement. We show by simulation and formal proof that our algorithm is correct.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: CONEXT
• Authors: Christof Leng, Wesley W. Terpstra, Bettina Kemme, Wilhelm Stannat, Alejandro P. Buchmann
• Keywords: Computer Networks, CONEXT 2008, Maintainer Node, Replicas, Unstructured Peer-to-peer Systems