Abstract

Finding information in a peer-to-peer system currently requires either a costly and vulnerable central index, or ooding the network with queries. In this paper we introduce the concept of Routing Indices (RIs), which allow nodes to forward queries to neighbors that are more likely to have answers. If a node cannot answer a query, it forwards the query to a subset of its neighbors, based on its local RI, rather than by selecting neighbors at random or by ooding the network by forwarding the query to all neighbors. We present three RI schemes: the compound, the hop-count, and the exponential routing indices. We evaluate their performance via simulations, and nd that RIs can improve performance by one or two orders of magnitude vs. a ooding-based system, and by up to 100 % vs. a random forwarding system. We also discuss the tradeo s between the di erent RIschemes and highlight the e ects of key design variables on system performance.

Citations