Solution for the broadcasting in the Kademlia peer-to-peer overlay

Structured peer-to-peer networks are capable of fast and efficient lookup operations as a distributed hash table. The topology of these networks makes it possible to send broadcast messages among nodes, either for the purpose of providing a complex query service for participants, or to disseminate information valuable for all nodes. In this article a broadcast algorithm for the Kademlia XOR topology is presented. The algorithm, which was developed specifically for Kademlia, uses replication mechanisms similar to that of the storage and retrieval service of this overlay topology. This allows for increased reliability and speed of the broadcast, and also efficient operation, as the routing table for lookups are already available and can be used. An analytical model is presented, which can be used to calculate the required level of replication for any desired reliability at runtime, and is validated with simulation as well.