Peer-assisted online storage and distribution: modeling and server strategies

ABSTRACT

Peer-assisted online storage and distribution systems have recently enjoyed large-scale deployment gaining increased popularity for multimedia content sharing in the Internet. Such systems typically deploy dedicated servers while effectively leveraging peer bandwidth in a complementary fashion, in order to guarantee adequate levels of service quality and minimize server cost. In this paper, motivated by our recent empirical study on a real-world system, FS2You, we develop a mathematical model to characterize and understand peer-assisted online storage systems serving multiple files of different popularity. Specifically, we examine and compare representative server bandwidth allocation strategies, and investigate the critical performance metrics and factors. We demonstrate that different server strategies may lead to remarkably different service qualities in terms of average downloading times, peer satisfaction levels and service quality differentiation. In particular, the current server strategy in FS2You is able to offer system-wide average downloading times comparable to the theoretical bound derived from our model.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.4 Distributed Systems
          Subjects: Distributed applications

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS
      H.4.m Miscellaneous

General Terms:
Performance

Keywords:
content distribution, modeling studies, online storage, peer-to-peer protocols