(An) efficient load balancing scheme in virtual server-based DHT systems

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel and efficient load balancing scheme to solve maintenance overhead and query routing latency problems in virtual server-based DHT systems. A unique feature of our scheme is a functional separation of the virtual server. That is, we functionally divide a virtual server into two logical nodes: Virtual Routing Node and Virtual Storage Node. Also, we suggest a simple routing algorithm which causes only $\theta(1)$ additional hop on top of Chord, and we apply two different join algorithm to reduce the overhead for load balancing process without affecting the routing performance. We perform an extensive simulation with varying parameters in terms of load balancing effect, load balancing overhead, maintenance overhead and routing performance. The simulation results show that our scheme effectively achieves good load balancing with considerably reduced query routing length and without increasing the number of connections that each physical node maintains compared to the legacy virtual server scheme.