LinkNet: A New Approach for Searching in a Large Peer-to-Peer System

Abstract

Abstract. Searching a file by its name is an essential problem of a large peerto-peer file-sharing system. Napster and Gnutella have poor scalability. DHTbased systems do not keep the order of the keys. Skip graphs and SkipNet have too many links. In this paper, we present a new scalable distributed data structure LinkNet for searching in a large peer-to-peer system. In LinkNet, all elements are stored in a sorted doubly linked list, and one node stores many elements. LinkNet uses virtual link to speed search and enhance fault tolerance. Because LinkNet is based on a sorted list, it benefits operations such as range query, bulk loading of data, and merging of two LinkNets.