Optimally Efficient Prefix Search and Multicast in Structured P2P Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a Distributed Tree Construction (DTC) method that enables efficient prefix search, range queries, and multicast in structured P2P networks, reducing message complexity and maintaining fast response times.

Contribution

The paper presents a DHT-agnostic algorithm for optimal prefix search and multicast in structured P2P networks, with minimal messaging and guaranteed performance bounds.

Findings

DTC reduces message count by 30-250% compared to existing solutions.

DTC maintains tree depth comparable to standard DHT lookups, ensuring responsiveness.

The approach is compatible with most existing DHTs and supports region-based queries.

Abstract

Searching in P2P networks is fundamental to all overlay networks. P2P networks based on Distributed Hash Tables (DHT) are optimized for single key lookups, whereas unstructured networks offer more complex queries at the cost of increased traffic and uncertain success rates. Our Distributed Tree Construction (DTC) approach enables structured P2P networks to perform prefix search, range queries, and multicast in an optimal way. It achieves this by creating a spanning tree over the peers in the search area, using only information available locally on each peer. Because DTC creates a spanning tree, it can query all the peers in the search area with a minimal number of messages. Furthermore, we show that the tree depth has the same upper bound as a regular DHT lookup which in turn guarantees fast and responsive runtime behavior. By placing objects with a region quadtree, we can perform a prefix search or a range query in a freely selectable area of the DHT. Our DTC algorithm is DHT-agnostic and works with most existing DHTs. We evaluate the performance of DTC over several DHTs by comparing the performance to existing application-level multicast solutions, we show that DTC sends 30-250% fewer messages than common solutions.