MOLStream: A Modular Rapid Development and Evaluation Framework for Live P2P Streaming

Abstract

We present MOL Stream, a modular framework for rapid development and evaluation of P2P live streaming systems. MOL Stream allows P2P streaming protocols to be decomposed into basic blocks, each associated with a standard functional specification. By exposing structural commonalities between these components, MOL Stream enables specific implementations of these building blocks to be combined in order to devise, refine and evaluate new P2P live streaming protocols. Our approach offers several benefits. First, block encapsulation entails that more advanced individual components, e.g., the overlay, can seamlessly replace existing ones without affecting the rest of the system. As a case study, we show how MOL Stream can seamlessly substitute the overlay used by DONet/Coolstreaming, a popular P2P live streaming implementation, for an improved version. Second, MOL Stream facilitates the comparison between various protocols over local clusters or wide-area test beds such as Planet Lab. The combination of rapid prototyping and minimum effort valuation enables researchers and students to faster understand how various design choices at different levels impact the performance and scalability of the protocol, as shown through several examples in this paper. MOL Stream is written in Java and is freely available as an open-source project at https://sourceforge.net/projects/molstream/.