When Multi-Hop Peer-to-Peer Routing Matters

Distributed hash tables have been around for a long time (1, 2). A number of recent projects propose peer-to-peer DHTs, based on multi-hop lookup optimizations. Some of these systems also require data permanence. This paper presents an analysis of when these optimizations are useful. We conclude that the multi-hop optimizations make sense only for truly vast and very dynamic peer networks. We also observe that resource trends indicate this scale is on the rise.