Skip Suffix Array: A Partial Match Retrieval Method on Structured Overlay Networks

Structured overlay networks provide superior scalability and robustness suitable for large scale distributed systems. However, typical algorithms' ability to handle complex queries is limited; consequently, their range of applications is also limited. We propose a partial match retrieval method for structured overlay networks that we refer to as Skip Suffix Array (SSA). SSA integrates the concept of suffix arrays with Skip Graph, which is a distributed range-queriable data structure. In addition, we introduce a unique routing method for delivering partial match queries. SSA achieves lower communication cost and better load balancing compared to some existing methods for partial match retrieval, as well as its search time is suppressed to O(log N) where N is the number of nodes. Experimental results demonstrate that SSA can reduce the average path length and the average number of messages by more than 85% compared to existing methods, under experimental conditions with 10, 000 nodes and search words of length 8.