An overlay management strategy to improve peer stability in P2P live streaming systems

Abstract

Peer-to-peer (P2P) live streaming systems rely on utilizing peers' free resources to alleviate the load on streaming servers. In these systems peers join and leave the overlay based on interest in the stream and streaming quality. Therefore, to ensure scalable streaming a large number of stable peers are required in the system. In this work we propose an overlay management strategy to improve peer stability. The stability of a peer depends on various metrics like startup delay, stream quality and number of stable peer links. Therefore, two steps are taken to improve the peer stability. First, the tracker creates virtual sources which helps in reducing startup delay and improving peer's initial streaming quality. Second, peer stability is predicted using some parameters which ensures that only stable peers are selected as partners. The partner selection procedure improves the streaming quality of peers and reduces playback interruptions. Using simulations we compare the performance of the proposal with an existing strategy. Results demonstrate that there is an improvement in the quality of service, which further improves peer stability.