Distributed Hash Tables in P2P Systems - A literary survey

Distributed Hash Tables (DHT) are algorithms used in modern peer-to-peer applications, which provide a reliable, scalable, fault tolerant and efficient way to manage P2P networks in a true peer to peer manner. A lot of literature has been published on the subject to analyze various different DHT algorithms, their properties and performance. The purpose of this paper is to find out about recent research conducted on the subject and wrap up a literary survey containing a comparison of four different DHT algorithms. The algorithms chosen for the survey are Chord, Tapestry, CAN and Kademlia. The comparison concentrates on the relative efficiencies of the different DHTs, presents them and analyzes the factors that affect the efficiency of a Distributed Hash Table.