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Experiences with large-scale operational trials of ALTO-enhanced P2P filesharing in an intra-ISP scenario

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Abstract

Application Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) has recently gained attention in the research and standardisation community as a way for a network operator to guide the peer selection process of distributed applications by providing network layer topology information. In particular P2P applications are expected to gain from ALTO, due to the many connections peers form among each other, often without taking network layer topology information into account. In this paper, we present results of an extensive intra-ISP trial with an ALTO-enhanced P2P filesharing software. In summary, our results show that—depending on the concrete setting and on the distribution of upload capacity in the network—ALTO enables an ISP to save operational costs significantly while not degrading application layer performance noticeably. In addition, based on our experience we are able to give advice to operators on how to save costs with ALTO while not sacrificing application layer performance at all.

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Notes

  1. In the experiments presented in this paper, we focused on traffic engineering aspects within the ISP network.

  2. Depending on the network rollout, localizing traffic with ALTO might also have negative effects for some peers as ALTO might amplify the effects of unevenly rolled-out networks.

  3. Peer EXchange, a protocol through which BitTorrent clients can exchange information about connected peers with other clients.

  4. We released our plugin code under GPL license, see http://sourceforge.net/projects/altovuzeplugin/.

  5. This value was chosen to exceed the communication link lengths within the TP network. This caused peers to only contact peers in other networks as a last resort when selecting based on ALTO rating.

  6. This is due to the fact that at the chunk exchange step the neighbor to send actually data to is selected based on the tit for tat mechanism. To verify the theory as stated in [24], we chose to not change the chunk exchange mechanism of the BitTorrent client to reflect ALTO ratings.

  7. See http://www.netfort.gr.jp/~dancer/software/dsh.html.en.

  8. http://curl.haxx.se/

  9. This setup avoids that all data needs to be uploaded for each experiment from outside the PlanetLab, i.e. it avoided several GB of cross-border network traffic for setting up individual experiment runs.

  10. http://sourceforge.net/projects/altovuzeplugin/

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by NAPA-WINE, a research project supported by the European Commission under its 7th Framework Program (contract no. 214412). The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the NAPA-WINE project or the European Commission.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NEC Laboratories Europe, Heidelberg, Germany

    Mischa Schmidt, Jan Seedorf, Stefano Napolitano & Armin Jahanpanah

  2. University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Rosario G. Garroppo & Andrea Cavaliere

  3. T-Systems, Stuttgart, Germany

    Thilo Ewald

  4. Telekomunikacja Polska S.A., Warsaw, Poland

    Zbigniew Kopertowski & Pawel Grochocki

  5. Organization Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland

    Marcin Pilarski

Authors
  1. Mischa Schmidt
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  2. Jan Seedorf
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  3. Stefano Napolitano
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  4. Rosario G. Garroppo
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  5. Andrea Cavaliere
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  7. Armin Jahanpanah
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  10. Pawel Grochocki
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Correspondence to Mischa Schmidt.

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Schmidt, M., Seedorf, J., Napolitano, S. et al. Experiences with large-scale operational trials of ALTO-enhanced P2P filesharing in an intra-ISP scenario. Peer-to-Peer Netw. Appl. 6, 134–154 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12083-012-0133-y

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