The allocation of resources amongst a set of autonomous entities with contradicting interests is a recurring and relevant theme in distributed domains.

In this paper we present the design, implementation and evaluation of a distributed directory service based on a bartering mechanism in order to improve robustness in data retention. A directory service maps the names of network resources to their respective network addresses. A distributed directory service maintains this information not at a single node in a network, but across many nodes. The major challenge addressed in this paper is to build a workable system which not only responds to queries from users but A) ensures that directory items are never lost in the system and B) optimizes query response time with respect to different patterns of query arrival.