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Game-Theoretic Mechanisms to Increase Data Availability in Decentralized Storage Systems

Published:01 September 2015Publication History
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Abstract

In a decentralized storage system, agents replicate each other’s data to increase availability. Compared to organizationally centralized solutions, such as cloud storage, a decentralized storage system requires less trust in the provider and may result in smaller monetary costs. Our system is based on reciprocal storage contracts that allow the agents to adopt to changes in their replication partners’ availability (by dropping inefficient contracts and forming new contracts with other partners). The data availability provided by the system is a function of the participating agents’ availability. However, a straightforward system in which agents’ matching is decentralized uses the given agent availability inefficiently. As agents are autonomous, the highly available agents form cliques replicating data between each other, which makes the system too hostile for the weakly available newcomers. In contrast, a centralized, equitable matching is not incentive compatible: it does not reward users for keeping their software running.

We solve this dilemma by a mixed solution: an “adoption” mechanism in which highly available agents donate some replication space, which in turn is used to help the worst-off agents. We show that the adoption motivates agents to increase their availability (is incentive-compatible), but also that it is sufficient for acceptable data availability for weakly-available agents.

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      • Published in

        cover image ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems
        ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems  Volume 10, Issue 3
        October 2015
        204 pages
        ISSN:1556-4665
        EISSN:1556-4703
        DOI:10.1145/2819320
        Issue’s Table of Contents

        Copyright © 2015 ACM

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        Association for Computing Machinery

        New York, NY, United States

        Publication History

        • Published: 1 September 2015
        • Revised: 1 January 2015
        • Accepted: 1 January 2015
        • Received: 1 July 2013
        Published in taas Volume 10, Issue 3

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