BitTorrent's Dilemma: Enhancing Reciprocity or Reducing Inequity

Conference paper (2011)

Authors

L. Jia Data-Intensive Systems - EEMCS
L. d' Acunto Data-Intensive Systems - EEMCS
M. Meulpolder Data-Intensive Systems - EEMCS
J.A. Pouwelse Data-Intensive Systems - EEMCS
D.H.J. Epema Data-Intensive Systems - EEMCS
Research Group
Data-Intensive Systems (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2011 L. Jia, L. d' Acunto, M. Meulpolder, J.A. Pouwelse, D.H.J. Epema
DOI
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https://doi.org/10.1109/CCNC.2011.5766581
Steady-state Analytical models Protocols Bandwidth Thin film transistors Peer to peer computing Channel allocation
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Published Date

2011

Language

English

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Department

Software Technology

Research Group

Data-Intensive Systems

Abstract

Enhancing reciprocity has been one of the primary motivations for the design of incentive policies in BitTorrent-like P2P systems. Reciprocity implies that peers need to contribute their bandwidth to other peers if they want to receive bandwidth in return. However, the over-provisioning that characterizes today’s BitTorrent communities and the development of many next-generation P2P systems with real-time constraints (e.g., for live and on-demand streaming) suggest that more effort can be devoted to reducing the inequity (i.e., the difference of service received) among peers, rather than only enhancing reciprocity. Inspired by this observation, in this work we analyze in detail
several incentive mechanisms that are used in BitTorrent systems, and explore several strategies that influence the balance between reciprocity and equity. Our study shows that (i) reducing inequity leads to a better overall system performance, and (ii) the behavior of seeders (i.e., peers that hold a complete copy of the file and upload it for free) influences whether reciprocity is enhanced or inequity reduced.