An emulator for peer-to-peer distributed hash tables

Distributed hash tables (DHTs) are one of the hottest topics in large-scale peer-to-peer network research. We propose a method for evaluating DHTs by emulator, which allows us to evaluate not only DHT algorithms but also DHT implementations. Evaluating DHT implementations is important for DHT application developers because their performance influences application design. We developed a DHT emulator that runs in a local environment, and controls several DHT implementations based on a scenario. Because a scenario allows us to repeat evaluations, we can compare DHTs by one scenario and find behavior patterns by slightly changed scenarios. Five use cases are demonstrated to show the capabilities of Peeremu, and some results show DHT characteristics that cannot be obtained by simulating DHT algorithms. We hope this method helps application developers to understand DHTs and utilize them to create a better user experience. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.