A new content distribution model with path probing mechanism for P2P overlay networks

Comparing to the traditional communication mechanism overlay networks offer an enhanced alternative for content delivery in terms of flexibility, scalability, and ease of deployment. In order to maximize the benefits of overlay networks flexible and scalable methods for content transmission and content representation are needed. This paper proposes a new content distribution model with overlay path probing mechanism for fast and efficient data dissemination in P2P overlay networks with heterogeneous overlay nodes. The proposed overlay path probing is an in-band approach whereby the actual content, sent over TCP, is exploited for probing purpose instead of injecting extra dummy packets into the native network. The proposed mechanism is capable of providing accurate and up-to-date estimation of the end-to-end capacity and the available bandwidth of overlay paths continuously. Therefore, the content distribution model will be able to dynamically adjust the transmission rate of the content to downstream links according to the available bandwidth along each overlay path to achieve better resource utilization. Several P2P applications such as P2P file sharing and CDNs can benefit from the enhanced content distribution model which can support simultaneous parallel downloads from multiple sources with multiple rates.