GlossaryAdvanced
Distributed Hash Table (DHT)
A decentralized system for storing and locating data across many participating nodes, with no single node holding the complete index.
A Distributed Hash Table (DHT) is a decentralized system for storing and locating data across a network of participating nodes, where each node is responsible for a portion of the overall data and lookup index, with no single node holding or controlling the complete picture.
DHTs are a common building block for peer-to-peer networks (see Kaavon's "Peer-to-Peer Network" glossary definition) that need to help participants find specific data or other peers without relying on a central directory server.
Examples
- A node looking up a specific piece of data in a DHT queries other nodes progressively closer to the data's location in the table, without needing a central directory.
- DHTs let a peer-to-peer network scale its lookup function across many participants, rather than depending on one central, potentially overloaded server.