  A broadcast mode may augment peer-to-peer overlay networks with an efficient,
scalable data replication function, but may also give rise to a virtual link
layer in VPN-type solutions. We introduce a simple broadcasting mechanism that
operates in the prefix space of distributed hash tables without signaling. This
paper concentrates on the performance analysis of the prefix flooding scheme.
Starting from simple models of recursive $k$-ary trees, we analytically derive
distributions of hop counts and the replication load. Extensive simulation
results are presented further on, based on an implementation within the OverSim
framework. Comparisons are drawn to Scribe, taken as a general reference model
for group communication according to the shared, rendezvous-point-centered
distribution paradigm. The prefix flooding scheme thereby confirmed its widely
predictable performance and consistently outperformed Scribe in all metrics.
Reverse path selection in overlays is identified as a major cause of
performance degradation.
