Building a tuple space on structured peer-to-peer networks

Abstract

Research on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks has attracted much attention recently. A key factor is their ability to handle dynamics in the system in a distributed fashion, including ad hoc and dynamic join and departure of the peers and dynamic changes in the underlying network environment. As more and more innovating P2P applications appear, the need to support intuitive communication and synchronization among the peers in the P2P system becomes imperative. In this paper, we discuss how to build a tuple space on top of P2P systems and use on-line games as a target application. A simple API is supported for accessing the data stored in the tuple space and communicating between the peers. Through experiments and a demonstration game, we show that our system can facilitate the development of network games in a fully distributed environment.