High Availability Data Model for P2P Storage Network

BangYu Wu1, Chi-Hung Chi1, Cong Liu1, ZhiHeng Xie1, and Chen Ding2
2

School of Software, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Department of Computing Science, Ryerson University, Canada

Abstract. With the goal to provide high data availability, replicas of data will be distributed based on the idea of threshold, meaning that data service is guaranteed to be available so long as any k out of n peers are online. The key distribution algorithm of the model as well as its scalability, management, and other availability-related factors are presented and analyzed. Keywords: P2P Network, Storage, Data Availability Model.

1 Introduction
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) has been proven to be one of the most effective and popular networks for large scale content sharing on Internet. Unlike traditional client-server environment where data is managed in a few highly reliable centralized servers, P2P network distributes the burden of data storage among its hundreds and thousands of peers. This results in the hard problem of data availability in the P2P network. Although ad hoc solutions based on redundancy are proposed, no guarantee of data availability is made. In this paper, we would like to investigate and improve the data availability problem of P2P network. In particular, we focus on the following issues: (i) how should the replicas placement and distribution be managed so that it can cope consistently with the statistics of the peer failure, and (ii) despite the constant changes in the peer online membership, what should be the replica placement scheme so that files are highly available without excessively replicating them over lots of peers. To answer these questions, we propose a new high availability model for data storage in P2P network. The key idea behind is to distribute replicas based on threshold, an idea borrowed from secret sharing in security [7]. Analysis shows that our threshold model is very efficient in enhancing data availability in P2P network.

2 Related Work
To ensure data availability in P2P network, redundancy is often added to the original data. Reed Solomon erasure coding is proposed to distribute bulk of data to millions of users through multicast and broadcast. Its basic principle is to divide a file into m fragments and recode them into n fragments, where m < n. At the other end, the file can be reassembled back from any m fragments with an aggregated size equal to the original file size [5]. Various strategies for replication and placement have been
L. Chen, P. Triantafillou, and T. Suel (Eds.): WISE 2010, LNCS 6488, pp. 322327, 2010. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010

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proposed to address the data availability problem of P2P network. PAST [6] maintains a strict replication rule: for each data item in the network, there should be k available replicas stored in k NodeID contagious living peers. OceanStore [2] employs multiple hashing functions for replication. It hashes data items ID with a few different seed numbers and assigns them to multiple target peers. PlanetP [1] and [3] generate redundant packets when a member needs to increase the availability of a file during periodic estimation of data availability. Path replication method [4] demands that the requested data is replicated in all the peers that are along the data transmission path between the peer requesting the data and the peer having the data. While all these replication rules and strategies give good foundation in data availability for P2P networks, they are usually either too restrictive with the replica number or too complicated to be used in practical systems.

3 Threshold-Based Model for High Availability Data Storage

Under P2P networks with ad-hoc peer nature, we argue that there are at least four main design requirements for any threshold-based high availability data storage model: Differential Data Reliability and Availability Setting. Data availability of each file in a P2P network should be uniquely defined based on the degree of its significance. Reconstruction of Original Data File through Simple Re-assembling of Data Chunks, but Without Complicated Computational Overhead. Minimizing data storage overhead should be achieved without sacrificing retrieval performance. Robustness of Data Availability Support. Good threshold-based data storage model should be as robust as possible. Easy Management of Data Chunk Replicas. Good threshold-based data storage model should provide file update without complicated, dynamic replication and migration. All data chunks should be managed, maintained, and searched easily.

3.1 Assumptions and Notation Before we go into the model, we should like to list down the assumptions made in our threshold-based data availability model. In the P2P network of our interest, every peer is delegated with equal responsibility. All peers are uniform in their storage capacity resources to permit our threshold model to deploy data chunk replicas freely. Furthermore, the P2P network is relatively stable in that peers eventually rejoin the community after they go offline. And the online time of peers is relatively much longer than their offline time. With the last assumption, it makes sense for us to talk about the average availability of a peer. To simplify the rest of our discussion, we define the following notations used in the paper. Let a file with size l is available in a P2P network with n peers and average peer availability p. The P2P network should provide file service with availability a when any k peers are online (which we call this model (k, n)). To achieve this goal, the file will be divided into m data chunks with size s each. Among them, r data chunks should be located in each peer so that when any k peers are available, the original file can be reconstructed back by assembling data chunks in those k peers.

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In general, since every peer in the network might have different probability for being online, say pi for each peer i, it would be too expensive to compute the exact file availability. Instead, we use the following approximation that uses the average probability of being online: n average online time , and p = 1 p . pi = i n i =1 (average online time + average offline time) 3.2 Threshold Constraints The overall description of our threshold model is as follows. There are n peers in the P2P network. For each file stored in the network, it is divided into many chunks. The constraint of our model is that if any k or more peers are online, the original file is guaranteed to be reconstructed back, else the file reconstruction will fail. What we target is to achieve the minimum of average storage overhead in each peer. The challenge is: how to divide the file and how to distribute the divided file chunks among peers? About the threshold value k, it should be computed in terms of the required system availability. Given a. k, m, and n that constrain the distribution of file chunks, for our (k, n) model, the availability function a(n,k,p) of a P2P network should be of one of the following forms: a(n,k,p) = =

C C
i =0 i =k nk

i n

p i (1 p) n i p n i (1 p ) i

(1) (2) (3)

i n

= 1 C i p i (1 p) n i n
i =0

k 1

Equation (1) explains the file availability probability from the viewpoint that at least k peers are online. Equation (2) explains the file availability probability from the opposite viewpoint that at most n-k peers are offline. And Equation (3) gives the availability probability when the total number of online peers is more than k. These three equations are identical in semantic. 3.3 Model Prototype Let D = {d1, d2, , dm} be the set of m data chunks that a given file is divided into. A P2P network peers set is denoted by E = {e1, e2, , en}. A data chunk distribution n*m matrix W = [wij] is obtained by multiplying a 0-1 matrix G = [gij] with size n*m to a diagonal matrix H with size m*m formed by di. The rows of W act as the data chunk vectors distributed among peers. It is W = G * H , Therefore,
w1,1 w1, 2 w1,3 ... w1, m g1,1 g1, 2 g1, 3 ... g1, m d1 w2,1 w2 , 2 w2, 3 ... w2, m = g 2,1 g 2 , 2 g 2, 3 ... g 2, m * 0 wn ,1 wn , 2 wn ,3 ... wn , m g n ,1 g n , 2 g n ,3 ... g n ,m 0 0 0 ... 0 d 2 0 ... 0 0 0 ... d m

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where wij D {0}. If wij = dj (1 i n, 1 j m), then dj will be distributed over peer i. Otherwise, if wij = 0, then dj will not be distributed over peer i. gij {0,1}. Implementing a threshold model means that it needs to compute the distribution matrix W. Since matrix H is known, the construction of the 0-1 matrix G will be the key problem. Theorem 1. Data chunk distribution matrix W that is consistent with the threshold model is accomplished if and only if three conditions about G are satisfied. They are, (1) For any j, (2)
k 1 . m Cn

(1 g
i =1

i, j

) k 1, 1 j m .

k 1 (3) There must exist C n columns in matrix G such that the number of columns with 0 is k-1, and that with 1 is n-( k-1). These columns together represent all the combinations with k-1 zeros distributed in n locations. Each column belongs to any one of these combinations, and all these columns are different from each other.

Proof Data chunk distribution based on our threshold model must satisfy the above three conditions. Condition (1) guarantees that a file can be reassembled by not less than k peers. Condition (2) and Condition (3) guarantee that the file reconstruction cannot be implemented by less than k peers. In terms of the (k, n) model, a file can be reconstructed when the number of online peers is not less than k. So, if we pick any k rows from G, at least one element 1 representing some data chunk will appear in each column of these k rows. If Condition (1) is not correct, there will exist a column j such that the number of zero elements is larger than k-1 and we can pick up at least k rows of W such that elements are zero in column j. In this case, the file cannot be reconstructed from these rows since at least one data chunk is missing even if the number of online peers are more than k-1. This result is paradoxical with the definition of the threshold definition, so Condition (1) is correct. For Condition (2), the original file will lack at least one data chunk to be reconstructed from all data chunks located in any k-1 peers, and any missing data chunks from any two different subsets of k-1 peers are different. Suppose there are two different sets A and B with |A| = |B| = k-1. If the reconstruction of file from them both miss data chunk d1, then the file will also lack of the same data chunk d1 even if it is reconstructed from more than k-1 peers in A B. This situation is contrary to the (k, n) model. So in the threshold model, a file should be divided into at least c n data chunks. For Condition (3), still using the reduction to absurdity, we assume that there does not exist such columns satisfying the combinations where k-1 zero elements are distributed over n different locations. Suppose one combination X =(x1, x2, , xn) is missing in G, let y , y , , y be the subscripts when x y1 , x y2 x yk 1 in X are zero.
1 2 k-1
k 1

So there does not exist such column in G that its elements are zero in row y1, y2, , yk-1. We pick up the corresponding row y1, y2, , yk-1 in W, and the original file can be constructed from these k-1 rows since each data chunk is located at least in one peer. This result is inconsistent with the threshold model, so Condition (3) is proved. Hence, the proof is completed.

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Theorem 2. There are m!/n! alternatives of data chunk distribution methods for our threshold model. Proof There are m columns in the 0-1 matrix G, and G still satisfies the threshold requirement no matter how all these columns are replaced with each other. This is because each data chunk di is independent with each other, and the distribution method for di can also be used for other data chunks. So we have m! placement methods for all columns. On the other hand, there are n rows in the 0-1 matrix G, with each row representing the data chunks located in the corresponding peer. G still satisfies the threshold requirement no matter how all rows are replaced with each other. Since each peer ei is independent of each other, the data chunks located in peer ei can also be distributed to other peers. But exchanging rows do not change the distribution of data chunks, it only influences peers distribution. So, we have n! placement methods for all rows. Hence, there are m!/n! alternatives of data chunk distribution methods for our threshold model, and the proof is completed. 3.4 Algorithm of Distributing Data Chunks From above analysis, we solve the problem of how many data chunks a file should be divided into and how many data chunks should be located in each peer. We understand that all data chunks are not scattered casually to peers, and there are (m!/n!) alternatives of distribution methods. So the last question is on how to distribute the divided data chunks among peers? The data chunks distribution matrix W can be k 1 computed when the 0-1 matrix G is solved. To compute matrix G, we construct C n combinations. The algorithm first determines the distribution of all zero elements, then set 1 to all the remaining elements in G. The algorithm of producing G is given k 1 in Fig. 1, its complexity is O( C n ). Step 1. Initialization: Suppose the first combination generates the first column. There are continuous k-1 zero elements in the first column, and their row numbers are y1 = 1, y2 = 2, , yk-1=k-1 respectively. Let y1, y2 ,, yk-1 be the current combination. k 1 -1 columns, compute the next combination of y1, Step2. For all the remaining C n y2 ,, yk-1 according to the current combination as follows: S1. i = max{j | yj < n-(k-1) + j} S2. yi = yi +1 S3. yj = yj-1 +1, j = i+1, i+2, , k-1 S4. y1, y2 ,, yk-1 forms the current combination. Step 3. According to each combination y1, y2 ,, yk-1 above, construct columns in G in this way: Set 0 to row elements whose row numbers are y1 = 1, y2 = 2, , yk-1 = k-1, and set 1 to the remaining elements.
Fig 1. Algorithm to Compute Matrix G

Finally, the distribution matrix W is calculated by W=G*H.

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4 Conclusion
This paper proposes a theoretical model to achieve high availability for P2P system by partitioning file into chunks and distributing these chunks over peers. The availability is implemented based on the threshold model such that file is available by reassembling blocks as long as any k peers are online. The algorithms of partitioning and distribution are carefully designed to guarantee that the file chunks located in any k peers can be used to reconstruct back the original file. By comparing the threshold model with simple replication mechanism, we can show that our model provides more flexible availability and download performance than simple replication mechanism which just throws k replicas to k selected peers in a dynamic P2P network.

Acknowledgement
This work is supported by the China National 863 project #2008AA01Z129.

References
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