Measurement and Analysis of BitTorrent Signaling Traffic

BitTorrent is a second generation Peer-to-Peer application that has been recently developed as an alternative to the classical client-server model to reduce the load burden on content servers and networks. The protocol relies on the use of swarming techniques for distributing content. No search functionality is built into the protocol, and the signaling is geared only towards an efficient dissemination of data. The paper reports on measurement and analysis of BitTorrent traffic collected at the Blekinge Institute of Technology (BIT), Karlskrona, Sweden. We measure and analyze data from local BitTorrent client sessions at BIT. The characteristics of the signaling traffic exchanged among the participating peers in a BitTorrent distribution swarm are investigated. A dedicated approach based on combining instrumentation at the application layer with flow identification and extraction at the transport layer is used for traffic measurements.