Samsara: honor among thieves in peer-to-peer storage

Peer-to-peer storage systems assume that their users consume resources in proportion to their contribution. Unfortunately, users are unlikely to do this without some enforcement mechanism. Prior solutions to this problem require centralized infrastructure, constraints on data placement, or ongoing administrative costs. All of these run counter to the design philosophy of peer-to-peer systems. Samsara enforces fairness in peer-to-peer storage systems without requiring trusted third parties, symmetric storage relationships, monetary payment, or certified identities. Each peer that requests storage of another must agree to hold a claim in return—a placeholder that accounts for available space. After an exchange, each partner checks the other to ensure faithfulness. Samsara punishes unresponsive nodes probabilistically. Because objects are replicated, nodes with transient failures are unlikely to suffer data loss, unlike those that are dishonest or chronically unavailable. Claim storag...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: SOSP
• Authors: Landon P. Cox, Brian D. Noble
• Keywords: Claim Storage Overhead, Keywords Peer-to-peer Storage, Operating System, Peer-to-peer Storage Systems, SOSP 2003