Efficient Batch Update of Unique Identifiers in a Distributed Hash Table for Resources in a Mobile Host

Resources in a distributed system can be identified using identifiers based on random numbers. When using a distributed hash table to resolve such identifiers to network locations, the straightforward approach is to store the network location directly in the hash table entry associated with an identifier. When a mobile host contains a large number of resources, this requires that all of the associated hash table entries must be updated when its network address changes. We propose an alternative approach where we store a host identifier in the entry associated with a resource identifier and the actual network address of the host in a separate host entry. This can drastically reduce the time required for updating the distributed hash table when a mobile host changes its network address. We also investigate under which circumstances our approach should or should not be used. We evaluate and confirm the usefulness of our approach with experiments run on top of OpenDHT.Comment: To be presented at the 2010 International Workshop on Cloud Computing, Applications and Technologie

Airborne Network Data Availability Using Peer to Peer Database Replication on a Distributed Hash Table

The concept of distributing one complex task to several smaller, simpler Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as opposed to one complex UAV is the way of the future for a vast number of surveillance and data collection tasks. One objective for this type of application is to be able to maintain an operational picture of the overall environment. Due to high bandwidth costs, centralizing all data may not be possible, necessitating a distributed storage system such as mobile Distributed Hash Table (DHT). A difficulty with this maintenance is that for an Airborne Network (AN), nodes are vehicles and travel at high rates of speed. Since the nodes travel at high speeds they may be out of contact with other nodes and their data becomes unavailable. To address this the DHT must include a data replication strategy to ensure data availability. This research investigates the percentage of data available throughout the network by balancing data replication and network bandwidth. The DHT used is Pastry with data replication using Beehive, running over an 802.11 wireless environment, simulated in Network Simulator 3. Results show that high levels of replication perform well until nodes are too tightly packed inside a given area which results in too much contention for limited bandwidth