Karger and colleagues: consistent hashing and random trees

What changed

Introduced minimally disruptive consistent hashing within probabilistically analyzed distributed caching protocols.

Scientific scope

The record is the exact six-author STOC 1997 paper. Its probabilistic analysis and caching protocol assumptions do not absorb later distributed-hash-table systems, production implementations, virtual-node refinements or every use of consistent hashing.

Evidence

The linked sources identify this contribution and its scope. WRS has not independently reconstructed the scientific claims. The record is the exact six-author STOC 1997 paper. Its probabilistic analysis and caching protocol assumptions do not absorb later distributed-hash-table systems, production implementations, virtual-node refinements or every use of consistent hashing.

Contributors

• David Karger · SCIENCE: Named source author of the scoped work; individual effort shares are not measured.
• Eric Lehman · SCIENCE: Named source author of the scoped work; individual effort shares are not measured.
• Tom Leighton · SCIENCE: Named source author of the scoped work; individual effort shares are not measured.
• Matthew Levine · SCIENCE: Named source author of the scoped work; individual effort shares are not measured.
• Daniel Lewin · SCIENCE: Named source author of the scoped work; individual effort shares are not measured.
• Rina Panigrahy · SCIENCE: Named source author of the scoped work; individual effort shares are not measured.

• David Karger author copy of consistent-hashing paper
• Crossref metadata for consistent-hashing paper

Provisional WRS assessment, edition 2026-10-16.1. Independent expert calibration is pending. This grade does not certify correctness or assign ownership.

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