Range addressable network: a P2P cache architecture for data ranges

Peer-to-peer computing paradigm is emerging as a scalable and robust model for sharing media objects. We propose an architecture and describe the associated algorithms and data structures to support the execution of range selection queries over data scattered across a P2P network especially for resource discovery in grid environments. We develop a distributed data structure referred to as a range addressable network that provides the following two quality-of-service guarantees: (i) the located peer is one with the smallest superset of the query range (important from the application perspective), and (ii) in a P2P network of n peers, a query is routed through O(log n) peers before the intended peer is found (important from the system perspective). Our preliminary experimental evaluation indicates that the range addressable network has desirable properties of scalability and load-balancing, which are crucial for the success of a large-scale P2P system.