Methods and systems are provided for optimally trading off replication overhead and consistency levels in distributed data replication where nodes are organized in a hierarchy. The root node has the original data that need to be replicated at all other nodes, and the replicated copies have a freshness threshold that must be satisfied. The data are propagated through periodic updates in the hierarchy. Each node periodically sends data to its child nodes. Given the freshness threshold, an algorithm and its distributed protocol can determine the optimal update period for each link of the hierarchy such that the freshness threshold is satisfied for every node and the overall replication overhead is minimized. The systems and methods can be used in any scenario where replicated data have consistency requirements, such as in a replicate overlay assisted resource discovery system.