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Distributed Hash Table

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Encyclopedia of Database Systems

Synonyms

DHT

Definition

A Distributed Hash Table (DHT) is a decentralized system that provides the functionality of a hash table, i.e., insertion and retrieval of key-value pairs. Each node in the system stores a part of the hash table. The nodes are interconnected in a structured overlay network, which enables efficient delivery of the key lookup and key insertion requests from the requestor to the node storing the key. To guarantee robustness to arrivals and departures of nodes, the overlay network topology is maintained and the key-value pairs are replicated to several nodes.

Key Points

Every DHT defines its key space. For example, in many DHTs the keys are 160-bit integers, which is the output of the popular SHA1 hash function. Each node in the system has a specific location in the key space and stores the key-value pairs that are close to that location. The different DHT systems vary in the exact algorithms for deciding which node should store which key [2].

The DHT relies on a...

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Recommended Reading

  1. Rhea S.C., Geels D., Roscoe T., and Kubiatowicz J. Handling churn in a DHT. In Proc. USENIX 2004 Annual Technical Conf., 2004, pp. 127–140.

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  2. Risson J. and Moors T. Survey of research towards robust peer-to-peer networks: Search methods. Comput. Networks, 50(17):3485–3521, 2006.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Wojciech Galuba & Sarunas Girdzijauskas

Authors
  1. Wojciech Galuba
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  2. Sarunas Girdzijauskas
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 266 Ferst Drive, 30332-0765, Atlanta, GA, USA

    LING LIU (Professor) (Professor)

  2. Database Research Group David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. TAMER ÖZSU (Professor and Director, University Research Chair) (Professor and Director, University Research Chair)

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© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Galuba, W., Girdzijauskas, S. (2009). Distributed Hash Table. In: LIU, L., ÖZSU, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_1232

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