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The Assignment-1 Specification and Marking Criteria
Distributed Hash Table (DHT) is a new distributed computing paradigm that harnesses the
computing and storage resources across the Internet for providing a variety of services such as
distributed file systems, content-distribution systems, and domain name services etc. Among others,
Chord (http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/papers/chord:sigcomm01/chord_sigcomm.pdf) is an original and
successful DHT protocol, and Open Chord (http://open-chord.sourceforge.net/ ) is an open source
implementation of Chord protocol.
In this assignment, you are to research DHT and write a technical report about DHT. The report is to
be structured as an academic report and the sections must be titled and numbered. Your work must
be appropriately referenced using the Harvard (author-date) referencing style. The length of the
report should be about 2,500 words. You are not required to provide an Executive Summary for the
report. An Exemplar for Writing a Simple Academic Technical Report is available on the unit web site;
you should read it before writing your report.
To prepare your report, you will need to research widely on DHT, and download and use Open Chord.
Your report must cover the issues that are detailed as follows.
Part 1: General Review of DHT
1. What is distributed hash table (DHT)?
2. How is the hash function performed in DHT?
3. What distributed services can be built on DHT?
Part 2: Review of Chord
1. What is the topology of Chord DHT?
2. What is the consistent hashing of Chord?
3. Chord search algorithm and performance
4. Chord node joins and stabilisation
5. Chord node failure
Part 3: Demonstration of DHT features via Open Chord
In this part you need to demonstrate some features of DHT and Chord by Open Chord software.
You need to download Open Chord and read its Unser’s Manual. You don’t have to rebuild
(compile) the source code as these features can be demonstrated through the Open Chord
Console (as detailed in Section 4 of the User’s Manual). To complete this part you need use both
screenshots and textual explanations.
1. Creation of a Chord overlay on a single JVM
Crate an Open Chord overlay network which has at least 8 nodes running on single Java
Virtual Machine (JVM). Show the screenshots with the commands to create the overlay.
2. Insert into and retrieve values from the Chord DHT2
Show a screenshot that inserts a pair of (key, value) from a node. Check how the value is
replicated by showing the DHT entries at each node by screenshots. Show a screenshot to
retrieve the value from a node.
3. Show the finger table, predecessors and successors of a node
4. Node leave and stabilisation
Make a node that stores the value leave and check how the value is replicated through the
Chord stabilisation algorithm.
5. Node Failure and stabilisation
Crash a node that stores the value and check how the value is replicated. What is the default
number of replicates that Open Chord maintains for a key-value pair?
Submission
The assignment must be submitted as a single Microsoft Word document. You must submit your
assignment via the unit web site. Any hardcopy or email submission will not be accepted. After the
marked assignments are returned, any late submissions will not be accepted.
Marking Criteria
Criteria Available Marks
Introduction 1.0
1. Introduce your research of DHT and its role in
distributed systems
0.5
2. What are you going to cover in the remainder of the
report?
0.5
Part 1: General Review of DHT 3.0
1. What is distributed hash table (DHT) 1.0
2. How is the hash function performed in DHT 1.0
3. What distributed services can be built on DHT 1.0
Part 2: Review of Chord 10.0
1. What is the topology of Chord DHT 2.0
2. What is the consistent hashing of Chord 2.0
3. Chord search algorithm and performance 2.0
4. Chord node joins and stabilisation 2.0
5. Chord node failure 2.0
Part 3: Demonstration of DHT features via Open Chord 5.0
1. Creation of a Chord overlay on a single JVM 1.0
2. Insert into and retrieve values from the Chord DHT 1.03
3. Show the finger table, predecessors and successors of
a node
1.0
4. Node leave and stabilisation 1.0
5. Node Failure and stabilisation 1.0
Conclusion 1.0
What does your research conclude about DHT in general
and Chord DHT protocol
Sub Total for Assignment-1 20.0
Late Penalty -1 (5% each calendar
day)
Plagiarism Penalty
Total for Assignment-1