An Optimal Topology for a Static P2P Live Streaming Network with Limited Resources

In this paper we propose a P2P live streaming topology, prove its optimality under common constraints, and match the analytical research with results from a running commercial network. We assume two types of nodes: viewers that consume the entire media, and amplifiers which are non-viewing nodes utilized for their upstream bandwidth. We analytically derive the minimum needed server upload capacity, for any topology, under the following assumptions: the amount of amplifiers and buffer time are limited, dynamics are low, and the total bandwidth required by the viewers exceeds the total upstream bandwidth of all peers. Then, we present a two-level topology and prove that it achieves the minimum possible server upload, up to a small fraction. Finally, the assumptions and derivation are supported by performing several experiments on RayV's real-world commercial system, with varying network parameters. Namely, we show our predictions are valid while varying the viewers to amplifiers ratio, the stream bit-rate, and the country of the peers. These results not only verify the analytical static predictions, but also evaluate the dynamic costs during the `flash crowd', the initial time when peers are joining the system.

[1]  Rakesh Kumar,et al.  Stochastic Fluid Theory for P2P Streaming Systems , 2007, IEEE INFOCOM 2007 - 26th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications.

[2]  Jin Li,et al.  P2P Streaming Capacity , 2009 .

[3]  Christos Gkantsidis,et al.  Network coding for large scale content distribution , 2005, Proceedings IEEE 24th Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies..

[4]  Baochun Li,et al.  Understanding the flash crowd in P2P live video streaming systems , 2009, 2009 17th International Packet Video Workshop.

[5]  Zongpeng Li,et al.  On achieving optimal throughput with network coding , 2005, Proceedings IEEE 24th Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies..

[6]  Baochun Li,et al.  On large-scale peer-to-peer streaming systems with network coding , 2008, ACM Multimedia.

[7]  Michael O. Rabin,et al.  Probabilistic Algorithms in Finite Fields , 1980, SIAM J. Comput..

[8]  K. Jain,et al.  Practical Network Coding , 2003 .

[9]  Jin Li,et al.  Mutualcast: An Efficient Mechanism for One-To-Many Content Distribution , 2005 .

[10]  Baochun Li,et al.  How Practical is Network Coding? , 2006, 200614th IEEE International Workshop on Quality of Service.

[11]  Huey-Ing Liu,et al.  MeTree: A Contribution and Locality-Aware P2P Live Streaming Architecture , 2010, 2010 24th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications.

[12]  Binoy Ravindran,et al.  An approximation algorithm for minimum-delay peer-to-peer streaming , 2009, 2009 IEEE Ninth International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing.