Efficient and resilient multimedia streaming on peer-to-peer networks

Abstract

In the last decade, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) structure has gained a lot of popularity for data-intensive services, like file sharing applications. In P2P structure, every peer contributes its resource and helps to relay the data exchange. The load at the central server in the conventional server-client model is being distributed across all users. The service capacity increases with the number of users. Thus, the more number of users using the service, the more capacity the service can provide. The overlay of peers is built on top of physical network. Since peers have computational resources, it gives flexibility for peers to manage the structure of overlay. However, streaming applications, especially live streaming applications, have more stringent temporal requirement than normal file sharing applications. Physical network failure and data loss also need to be considered when building the overlay structure. Moreover, it is difficult to keep the P2P structure stable due to dynamic peer behavior. The three challenges hinder the quality of streaming services in P2P overlay.