A distributed index system for efficient query processing in peer-to-peer networks

Peer-to-peer (P2P) systems have the advantage of high autonomy. However, query processing in P2P system is inefficient because query messages propagate in the P2P network. To realize efficient and scalable systems without losing the autonomy of the P2P system, this paper proposes an index system called direct indices (DIs) in which the indexes keep information about the usefulness of peers and queries are forwarded to useful peers. According to the query result, peers access the document directly. In this way, bandwidth consumption is reduced and scalability of P2P networks is achieved. This paper shows the performance of DIs experimentally.