Overlay network measurements with distribution evolution and geographical visualization

Since Video-on-Demand (VoD) streaming and general overlay traffic, especially file sharing, are causing the main portion of today's Internet traffic, Internet Service Providers (ISP) face (a) challenges of network congestion during peak hours and (b) tussles between Video Content Providers (VCP) and ISPs, which can lead to congestion. However, dedicated traffic traces are not available today due to (a) the lacking interest of VCPs to share their internal data, e.g., avoiding problems with privacy issues, and (b) the unavailability of measurement studies for overlay networks that are neither too specific nor cover more than a snap-shot of the network, which does reflect the essential traffic evolution over time. Thus, this paper bridges this gap between suitable traffic data and a video consumption analysis by (1) the development and prototyping of a new system to continuously monitor Video Consumption in Overlay Networks (VIOLA), resulting in an extensive and comprehensive measurement data set for detailed network evolutions over time in case of BitTorrent, and (2) a generic and reusable geographic visualization approach termed GeoChart, which aggregates selected data into a generic data structure to visualize them on a map.