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Optimizing BitTorrent-like peer-to-peer systems in the presence of network address translation devices

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Abstract

BitTorrent nowadays is one of the most important peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing applications on the Internet, and it has also inspired many other P2P applications such as live or on-demand video streaming services. On the other hand, Network Address Translation (NAT) has become pervasive in almost all networking scenarios, from residential Internet access to enterprise networks. Despite the effort of NAT traversal, it is still very likely that P2P applications cannot receive incoming connection requests properly if they are behind NAT. To quantify the performance impact of NAT on BitTorrent-like P2P systems, we have created and validated a detailed but tractable mathematical model. We have also proposed and briefly examined a simple but effective strategy to mitigate the negative impact on NAT peers. In this paper, we further extend our model to cover the proposed biased optimistic unchoke strategy, and optimize the system performance in terms of both average peer download time and system finish time. We also create a new, faster Java-based BitTorrent simulator, which is used to validate the extended model and show the optimality of the proposed strategy and its boundary conditions.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund (BCKDF).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

    Le Chang, Yangyang Liu, Zhonghua Wei & Jianping Pan

Authors
  1. Le Chang
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  2. Yangyang Liu
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  3. Zhonghua Wei
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  4. Jianping Pan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jianping Pan.

Additional information

Part of the work presented in this paper has appeared at 9th IEEE International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing (P2P’09), Seattle, WA, USA, Sept. 9–11, 2009 [1].

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Chang, L., Liu, Y., Wei, Z. et al. Optimizing BitTorrent-like peer-to-peer systems in the presence of network address translation devices. Peer-to-Peer Netw. Appl. 4, 274–288 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12083-010-0083-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12083-010-0083-1

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