Topology-Aware Routing in Structured Peer-to-Peer Overlay Networks

Structured peer-to-peer (p2p) overlay networks like CAN, Chord, Pastry and Tapestry offer a novel platform for a variety of scalable and decentralized distributed applications. They provide efficient and fault-tolerant routing, object location and load balancing within a selforganizing overlay network. One important aspect of these systems is how they exploit network proximity in the underlying Internet. We present a study of topologyaware routing approaches in p2p overlays, identify proximity neigbor selection as the most promising technique, and present an improved design in Pastry. Results obtained via analysis and via simulation of two large-scale topology models indicate that it is possible to efficiently exploit network proximity in self-organizing p2p substrates. Proximity neighbor selection incurs only a modest additional overhead for organizing and maintaining the overlay network. The resulting locality properties improve application performance and reduce network usage in the Internet substantially. Finally, we show that the impact of proximity neighbor selection on the load balancing in the p2p overlay is minimal.