Network Scaffolding for Efficient Stabilization of the Chord Overlay Network

Abstract

Overlay networks, where nodes communicate with neighbors over logical links consisting of zero or more physical links, have become an important part of modern networking. From data centers to IoT devices to Internet-based applications, overlay networks are used to organize a diverse set of processes for efficient operations like searching and routing. Many of these overlay networks operate in fragile environments where processes are susceptible to faults which may perturb the logical network topology. Self-stabilizing overlay networks have been proposed as one way to manage these faults, promising to build or restore a particular topology from any initial configuration or after the occurrence of any transient faults. Designing efficient self-stabilizing algorithms for many topologies, however, is not an easy task. For non-trivial topologies that have desirable properties like low diameter and robust routing in the face of node or link failures, self-stabilizing algorithms to date have had at least linear running time or space requirements. In this brief announcement, we sketch an algorithm for building a Chord network that has polylogarithmic time and space complexity.