Squirrel: A peertopeer web cache

1
Squirrel A peer-to-peer web cache

• Sitaram Iyer (Rice University)
• Joint work with
• Ant Rowstron (MSR Cambridge)
• Peter Druschel (Rice University)

PODC 2002 / Sitaram Iyer / Tuesday July 23 /
Monterey, CA
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Web Caching

• Latency,
• External traffic,
• Load on web servers and routers.
• Deployed at Corporate network boundaries, ISPs,
  Web Servers, etc.

3
Web Cache
Browser Cache
Browser
Web Server
Client
Centralized Web Cache
Browser Cache
Browser
Client
Internet
Corporate LAN
4
Cooperative Web Cache
Browser Cache
Web Cache
Browser
Web Cache
Web Server
Client
Web Cache
Web Cache
Web Cache
Browser Cache
Browser
Client
Internet
Corporate LAN
5
Decentralized Web Cache
Squirrel
Browser Cache
Browser
Web Server
Client
Browser Cache
Browser
Client
Internet
Corporate LAN
6
Distributed Hash Table

• Peer-to-peer location service Pastry

nodes
k1,v1
k2,v2
k3,v3
Operations Insert(k,v) Lookup(k)
Peer-to-peer routing and location substrate
k4,v4
k5,v5
k6,v6
ltkey,valuegt

• Completely decentralized and self-organizing
• Fault-tolerant, scalable, efficient

7
Why peer-to-peer?

• Cost of dedicated web cache
• No additional hardware
• Administrative effort
• Self-organizing network
• Scaling implies upgrading
• Resources grow with clients

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Setting

• Corporate LAN
• 100 - 100,000 desktop machines
• Located in a single building or campus
• Each node runs an instance of Squirrel
• Sets it as the browsers proxy

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Mapping Squirrel onto Pastry

• Two approaches
• Home-store
• Directory

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Home-store model
client
URL hash
home
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Home-store model
client
home
thats how it works!
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Directory model

• Client nodes always cache objects locally.
• Home-store home node also stores objects.
• Directory the home node only stores pointers to
  recent clients, and forwards requests.

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Directory model
client
home
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Directory model
client
home
Randomly choose entry from table
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Directory Advantages

• Avoids storing unnecessary copies of objects.
• Rapidly changing directory for popular objects
  seems to improve load balancing.
• Home-store scheme can incur hotspots.

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Directory Disadvantages

• Cache insertion only happens at clients, so
• active clients store all the popular objects,
• inactive clients waste most of their storage.
• Implications
• Reduced cache size.
• Load imbalance.

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Directory Load spike example

• Web page with many embedded images, or
• Periods of heavy browsing.
• Many home nodes point to such clients!

Evaluate
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Trace characteristics
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Total external traffic
Redmond
105
No web cache
100
95
Directory
Total external traffic (GB)
lower is better
Home-store
90
Centralized cache
85
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
10
100
Per-node cache size (in MB)
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Total external traffic
Cambridge
6.1
No web cache
6
5.9
Directory
Total external traffic (GB)
5.8
lower is better
Home-store
5.7
5.6
Centralized cache
5.5
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
10
100
Per-node cache size (in MB)
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LAN Hops
Redmond
100
80
60
of cacheable requests
40
20
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Total hops within the LAN
Centralized
Home-store
Directory
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LAN Hops
Cambridge
100
80
60
of cacheable requests
40
20
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
Total hops within the LAN
Centralized
Home-store
Directory
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Load in requests per sec
Redmond
100000
Home-store
Directory
10000
1000
Number of times observed
100
10
1
0
10
20
30
40
50
Max objects served per-node / second
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Load in requests per sec
Cambridge
1e07
Home-store
Directory
1e06
100000
10000
Number of times observed
1000
100
10
1
0
10
20
30
40
50
Max objects served per-node / second
25
Load in requests per min
Redmond
100
Home-store
Directory
10
Number of times observed
1
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Max objects served per-node / minute
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Load in requests per min
Cambridge
Home-store
Directory
10000
1000
Number of times observed
100
10
1
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Max objects served per-node / minute
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Fault tolerance

• Sudden node failures result in
• partial loss of cached content.
• Home-store Proportional to failed nodes.
• Directory More vulnerable.

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Fault tolerance
If 1 of Squirrel nodes abruptly crash, the
fraction of lost cached content is
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Conclusions

• Possible to decentralize web caching.
• Performance comparable to a centralized web
  cache,
• Is better in terms of cost, scalability, and
  administration effort, and
• Under our assumptions, the home-store scheme is
  superior to the directory scheme.

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Other aspects of Squirrel

• Adaptive replication
• Hotspot avoidance
• Improved robustness
• Route caching
• Fewer LAN hops

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Thanks.
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(backup) Storage utilization
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(backup) Fault tolerance
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(backup) Full home-store protocol
other
other
req
req
req
(LAN)
(WAN)
a object or notmod from home
b req
home
client
1
b
b object or notmod from origin
2
3
origin
server
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(backup) Full directory protocol
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(backup) Peer-to-peer Computing

• Decentralize a distributed protocol
• Scalable
• Self-organizing
• Fault tolerant
• Load balanced
• Not automatic!!

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Decentralized Web Cache
Browser Cache
Browser
Web Server
Browser Cache
Browser
Internet
LAN
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Challenge

• Decentralized web caching algorithm
• Need to achieve those benefits in practice!
• Need to keep overhead unnoticeably low.
• Node failures should not become significant.

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Peer-to-peer routing, e.g., Pastry

• Peer-to-peer object location and routing
  substrate Distributed Hash Table.
• Reliably maps an object key to a live node.
• Routes in log16(N) steps
• (e.g. 3-4 steps for 100,000 nodes)

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Home-store is better!

• Simpler home-store scheme achieves load balancing
  by hash function randomization.
• Directory scheme implicitly relies on access
  patterns for load distribution.

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Directory scheme seems better

• Avoids storing unnecessary copies of objects.
• Rapidly changing directory for popular objects
  results in load balancing.

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Interesting difference

• Consider
• Web page with many images, or
• Heavily browsing node
• Directory many pointers to some node.
• Home-store natural load balancing.

Evaluate
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Fault tolerance
When a single Squirrel node crashes, the fraction
of lost cached content is