DHTs characteristically emphasize the following properties:
* [[Decentralized computing|Autonomy and decentralization]]: theThe nodes collectively form the system without any central coordination.
* [[Fault tolerance]]: theThe system should be reliable (in some sense) even with nodes continuously joining, leaving, and failing.<ref>R Mokadem, A Hameurlain and AM Tjoa. [https://www.irit.fr/~Riad.Mokadem/wp-content/uploads/sites/67/2020/12/Resource-discovery-service-while-minimizing-maintenance-overhead-in-hierarchical-DHT-systems-iiWas2010.pdf Resource discovery service while minimizing maintenance overhead in hierarchical DHT systems]. Proc. iiWas, 2010</ref>
* [[scale (computing)|Scalability]]: theThe system should function efficiently even with thousands or millions of nodes.
A key technique used to achieve these goals is that any one node needs to coordinate with only a few other nodes in the system – most commonly, [[Big O notation|O]](log ''n'') of the ''n'' participants (see below) – so that only a limited amount of work needs to be done for each change in membership.
Some DHT designs seek to be [[secureSecure communication|secure]] against malicious participants<ref>Guido Urdaneta, Guillaume Pierre and Maarten van Steen. [http://www.globule.org/publi/SDST_acmcs2009.html A Survey of DHT Security Techniques]. ACM Computing Surveys 43(2), January 2011.</ref> and to allow participants to remain [[anonymityAnonymity|anonymous]], though this is less common than in many other peer-to-peer (especially [[file sharing]]) systems; see [[anonymous P2P]].
Finally, DHTs must deal with more traditional distributed systems issues such as [[Load balancing (computing)|load balancing]], [[data integrity]], and performance (in particular, ensuring that operations such as routing and data storage or retrieval complete quickly).
