We propose a new scheme for content distribution of large files that is based on network coding. With network coding, each node of the distribution network is able to generate and transmit encoded blocks of information. The randomization introduced by the coding process eases the scheduling of block propagation, and, thus, makes the distribution more efficient. This is particularly important in large unstructured overlay networks, where the nodes need to make decisions based on local information only. We compare network coding to other schemes that transmit unencoded information (i.e. blocks of the original file) and, also, to schemes in which only the source is allowed to generate and transmit encoded packets. We study the performance of network coding in heterogeneous networks with dynamic node arrival and departure patterns, clustered topologies, and when incentive mechanisms to discourage free-riding are in place. We demonstrate through simulations of scenarios of practical interest that the expected file download time improves by more than 20-30 % with network coding compared to coding at the server only and, by more than 2-3 times compared to sending unencoded information. Moreover, we show that network coding improves the robustness of the system and is able to smoothly handle extreme situations where the server and nodes departure the system.

This paper presents DONet, a Data-driven Overlay Network for live media streaming. The core operations in DONet are very simple: every node periodically exchanges data availability information with a set of partners, and retrieves unavailable data from one or more partners, or supplies available data to partners. We emphasize three salient features of this data-driven design: 1) easy to implement, as it does not have to construct and maintain a complex global structure; 2) efficient, as data forwarding is dynamically determined according to data availability while not restricted by specific directions; and 3) robust and resilient, as the partnerships enable adaptive and quick switching among multi-suppliers. We show through analysis that DONet is scalable with bounded delay. We also address a set of practical challenges for realizing DONet, and propose an efficient member- and partnership management algorithm, together with an intelligent scheduling algorithm that achieves real-time and continuous distribution of streaming contents.

Abstract—Overlay networks have emerged as a powerful and highly flexible method for delivering content. We study how to optimize throughput of large transfers across richly connected, adaptive overlay networks, focusing on the potential of collaborative transfers between peers to supplement ongoing downloads. First, we make the case for an erasure-resilient encoding of the content. Using the digital fountain encoding approach, end hosts can efficiently reconstruct the original content of size from a subset of any symbols drawn from a large universe of encoding symbols. Such an approach affords reliability and a substantial degree of application-level flexibility, as it seamlessly accommodates connection migration and parallel transfers while providing resilience to packet loss. However, since the sets of encoding symbols acquired by peers during downloads may overlap substantially, care must be taken to enable them to collaborate effectively. Our main contribution is a collection of useful algorithmic tools for efficient summarization and approximate reconciliation of sets of symbols between pairs of collaborating peers, all of which keep message complexity and computation to a minimum. Through simulations and experiments on a prototype implementation, we demonstrate the performance benefits of our informed content-delivery mechanisms and how they complement existing overlay network architectures. Index Terms—Bloom filter, content delivery, digital fountain, erasure code, min-wise sketch, overlay, peer-to-peer, reconciliation. I.

Abstract — In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of the iPlane, a scalable service providing accurate predictions of Internet path performance for emerging overlay services. Unlike the more common black box latency prediction techniques in use today, the iPlane builds an explanatory model of the Internet. We predict end-to-end performance by composing measured performance of segments of known Internet paths. This method allows us to accurately and efficiently predict latency, bandwidth, capacity and loss rates between arbitrary Internet hosts. We demonstrate the feasibility and utility of the iPlane service by applying it to several representative overlay services in use today: content distribution, swarming peer-to-peer filesharing, and voice-over-IP. In each case, we observe that using iPlane’s predictions leads to a significant improvement in end user performance. 1

In this paper, we present Chainsaw, a p2p overlay multicast system that completely eliminates trees. Peers are notified of new packets by their neighbors and must explicitly request a packet from a neighbor in order to receive it. This way, duplicate data can be eliminated and a peer can ensure it receives all packets. We show with simulations that Chainsaw has a short startup time, good resilience to catastrophic failure and essentially no packet loss. We support this argument with real-world experiments on Planetlab and compare Chainsaw to Bullet and Splitstream using MACEDON.

While application end-point architectures have proven to be viable solutions for large-scale distributed applications such as distributed computing and file-sharing, there is little known about its feasibility for more bandwidth-demanding applications such as live streaming. Heterogeneity in bandwidth resources and dynamic group membership, inherent properties of application end-points, may adversely affect the construction of a usable and efficient overlay. At large scales, the problems become even more challenging. In this paper, we study one of the most prominent architectural issues in overlay multicast: the feasibility of supporting large-scale groups using an application end-point architecture. We look at three key requirements for feasibility: (i) are there enough resources to construct an overlay, (ii) can a stable and connected overlay be maintained in the presence of group dynamics, and (iii) can an efficient overlay be constructed? Using traces from a large content delivery network, we characterize the behavior of users watching live audio and video streams. We show that in many common real-world scenarios, all three requirements are satisfied. In addition, we evaluate the performance of several design alternatives and show that simple algorithms have the potential to meet these requirements in practice. Overall, our results argue for the feasibility of supporting largescale live streaming using an application end-point architecture.

Abstract — In recent years, BitTorrent has emerged as a very scalable peer-to-peer file distribution mechanism. While early measurement and analytical studies have verified BitTorrent’s performance, they have also raised questions about various metrics (upload utilization, fairness, etc.), particularly in settings other than those measured. In this paper, we present a simulationbased study of BitTorrent. Our goal is to deconstruct the system and evaluate the impact of its core mechanisms, both individually and in combination, on overall system performance under a variety of workloads. Our evaluation focuses on several important metrics, including peer link utilization, file download time, and fairness amongst peers in terms of volume of content served. Our results confirm that BitTorrent performs near-optimally in terms of uplink bandwidth utilization, and download time except under certain extreme conditions. We also show that low bandwidth peers can download more than they upload to the network when high bandwidth peers are present. We find that the rate-based tit-for-tat policy is not effective in preventing unfairness. We show how simple changes to the tracker and a stricter, block-based tit-for-tat policy, greatly improves fairness. I.

In this paper, we report on experience in building and deploying an operational Internet broadcast system based on Overlay Multicast. In over a year, the system has been providing a cost-e#ective alternative for Internet broadcast, used by over 3600 users spread across multiple continents in home, academic and commercial environments. Technical conferences and special interest groups are the early adopters. Our experience confirms that Overlay Multicast can be easily deployed and can provide reasonably good application performance. The experience has led us to identify first-order issues that are guiding our future e#orts and are of importance to any Overlay Multicast protocol or system. Our key contributions are (i) enabling a real Overlay Multicast application and strengthening the case for overlays as a viable architecture for enabling group communication applications on the Internet, (ii) the details in engineering and operating a fully functional streaming system, addressing a wide range of real-world issues that are not typically considered in protocol design studies, and (iii) the data, analysis methodology, and experience that we are able to report given our unique standpoint.

(PRM): a multicast data recovery scheme that improves data delivery ratios while maintaining low end-to-end latencies. PRM has both a proactive and a reactive components; in this paper we describe how PRM can be used to improve the performance of application-layer multicast protocols especially when there are high packet losses and host failures. Through detailed analysis in this paper, we show that this loss recovery technique has efficient scaling properties—the overheads at each overlay node asymptotically decrease to zero with increasing group sizes. As a detailed case study, we show how PRM can be applied to the NICE application-layer multicast protocol. We present detailed simulations of the PRM-enhanced NICE protocol for 10 000 node Internet-like topologies. Simulations show that PRM achieves a high delivery ratio ( 97%) with a low latency bound (600 ms) for environments with high end-to-end network losses (1%–5%) and high topology change rates (5 changes per second) while incurring very low overheads ( 5%). Index Terms—Multicast, networks, overlays, probabilistic forwarding, protocols, resilience. I.

Bugs in distributed systems are often hard to find. Many bugs reflect discrepancies between a system’s behavior and the programmer’s assumptions about that behavior. We present Pip 1, an infrastructure for comparing actual behavior and expected behavior to expose structural errors and performance problems in distributed systems. Pip allows programmers to express, in a declarative language, expectations about the system’s communications structure, timing, and resource consumption. Pip includes system instrumentation and annotation tools to log actual system behavior, and visualization and query tools for exploring expected and unexpected behavior 2. Pip allows a developer to quickly understand and debug both familiar and unfamiliar systems. We applied Pip to several applications, including FAB, SplitStream, Bullet, and RanSub. We generated most of the instrumentation for all four applications automatically. We found the needed expectations easy to write, starting in each case with automatically generated expectations. Pip found unexpected behavior in each application, and helped to isolate the causes of poor performance and incorrect behavior. 1