0000000000300821
AUTHOR
Honggang Zhang
Availability in BitTorrent Systems
In this paper, we investigate the problem of highly available, massive-scale file distribution in the Internet. To this end, we conduct a large-scale measurement study of BitTorrent, a popular class of systems that use swarms of actively downloading peers to assist each other in file distribution. The first generation of BitTorrent systems used a central tracker to enable coordination among peers, resulting in low availability due to the tracker's single point of failure. Our study analyzes the prevalence and impact of two recent trends to improve BitTorrent availability: (i) use of multiple trackers, and (ii) use of Distributed Hash Tables (DHTs), both of which also help to balance load be…
Adapting Downlink Power in Fronthaul-Constrained Hierarchical Software-Defined RANs
Abstract The proof-of-concept software-defined radio access network (RAN) is not flexible enough due to the inherent delay and the necessity of high-capacity fronthaul links. We are hence motivated to propose a hierarchical software-defined RAN architecture, over which the base stations (BSs) are abstracted into multiple virtual local controllers while these local controllers are administered by a high-level controller. Under such a hierarchical network architecture, we particularly investigate in this paper how to adapt the BS transmit power over a long term according to the network dynamics under the constraints of mobile user queue stability and limited fronthaul capacity. We first formu…
On Unstructured File Sharing Networks
We study the interaction among users of unstructured file sharing applications, who compete for available network resources (link bandwidth or capacity) by opening multiple connections on multiple paths so as to accelerate data transfer. We model this interaction with an unstructured file sharing game. Users are players and their strategies are the numbers of sessions on available paths. We consider a general bandwidth sharing framework proposed by Kelly [1] and Mo and Walrand [2], with TCP as a special case. Furthermore, we incorporate the Tit-for-Tat strategy (adopted by BitTorrent [3] networks) into the unstructured file sharing game to model the competition in which a connection can be …
A Network Formation Game Approach to Study BitTorrent Tit-for-Tat
The Tit-for-Tat strategy implemented in BitTorrent (BT) clients is generally considered robust to selfish behaviours. The authors of [1] support this belief studying how Tit-for-Tat can affect selfish peers who are able to set their upload bandwidth. They show that there is a "good" Nash Equilibrium at which each peer uploads at the maximum rate. In this paper we consider a different game where BT clients can change the number of connections to open in order to improve their performance. We study this game using the analytical framework of network formation games [2]. In particular we characterize the set of pairwise stable networks the peers can form and how the peers can dynamically reach…