P2P Network Management

1 Introduction

P2P is abbreviation of peer-to-peer, which means the peer-to-peer networking. The P2P technology is widely applied in document sharing and exchange, peer-to-peer computation, computer-supported cooperative work, search engine, video and instant message. Because the P2P application has consumed the massive network bandwidth as shown in Figure 1, which has affected normal operation of the other network application. It has brought enormous difficulty and risk for the network management. Moreover the P2P application also has issues of copyright, privacy, and security. Due to lack of effective management solution, some ISPs(Internet Service Provider) even plan to block all P2P services on their network boundaries. It is urgent to manage the P2P network, so as to help it to develop in a healthy state.

Figure 1.

P2P application consumed massive network bandwidth

Because P2P applications have enormous flexibility and variability, ISPs have considered other new traffic control techniques. Unfortunately, none of them appear to be fully satisfactory without P2P cooperation. The new techniques are either ineffective or degraded, and sometimes they are too complex to operate. Different P2P protocols use different control messages, and many P2P protocols use encryption and dynamic ports to avoid being identified. For these reasons, it is more difficult to identify and manage the P2P applications. The other approach, for example, is to install P2P caching devices to cut down bandwidth consumed by P2P applications. However, these caches need to be designed for specific applications and use the appropriate protocol, limiting their generality and applicability to closed protocols.

Because of these kinds of issues, ISP and PSP(P2P Service Provider) have fell into the vicious circle of “chase war”, which will not only hold back the development of P2P technology, but also is unable to fundamentally solve the P2P network management problem.

The 8th International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing 2008 (P2P' 08) has first issued the scope of overlay monitoring and management.

2 P2p Network Features In Network Management

The demand of users results in the rapid development of P2P networks, but so far the research on P2P network has only been focused on application, but not on management. P2P network is a virtual network covered on the Internet, while the management of P2P network is different from the Internet. Figure 2 shows that the major unit of Internet network management is the autonomous system of ISPs, and it is the ISP who manages the network. In each autonomous system, there are one or more network management systems (NMS) of the ISP which is responsible for the management of the network devices, users and etc.

Figure 2.

Difference management between P2P network and Internet

While in the P2P networks, the managers of the network are a number of ISP and PSP. Such as node a in Figure 2 which is physically in ISP-A’s network, at the same time, it is in the P2P network of PSP-1 and PSP-2. In the network management view, node a is the managed object of ISP-A, PSP-1 and the PSP-2, as a result, it will meet the requests of several network managers.

The effective management of P2P network is the demand of ISP, PSP, the government and the users.

Firstly, the ISP hopes to find out the current network traffic condition in the autonomous system of the P2P network, so as to implement the active control. The accounting of the massive P2P traffic is the important management content.

Secondly, PSP needs to provide a better application service to the current best-effort network. There are many types of P2P applications with various features.

For instance, P2P systems for file sharing and streaming might have different needs, such as P2P streaming having more stringent real-time constraints than file sharing. Meanwhile the management of the user, the content, the security and the accounting should be strengthened.