Improving peer-to-peer file distribution: winner doesn't have to take all

Recent work on BitTorrent has shown that the choke/unchoke mechanism implements an auction where each peer tries to induce other peers into "unchoking" it by uploading more data than competing peers. Under such a scenario, fast peers tend to trade with one another and neglect slower peers. In this work, we revisit the peer-to-peer (p2p) file distribution problem and show that this does not have to be the case. We describe a p2p file distribution algorithm, the Tit-ForTat Transport Protocol (TFTTP), that is able to achieve faster download performance than BitTorrent by employing a new mechanism called a promise. Our experiments show that the average throughput for TFTTP is some 30% to 70% higher than that for BitTorrent under controlled and realistic network conditions. We also show that TFTTP exhibits fairer sharing behavior and avoids the situation where "winner takes all". Categories and Subject Descriptors C.2.2 [Computer-Communication Networks]: Network Protoco...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: SIGCOMM
• Authors: Ben Leong, Youming Wang, Su Wen, Cristina Carbunaru, Yong Meng Teo, Christopher Chang, Tracey Ho
• Keywords: Communications, File Distribution, File Distribution Problem, SIGCOMM 2010, Slower Peers