Estimating scale of peer-to-peer file sharing applications using multilayer partial measurement

Autonomous distributed systems comprising an overlay network on the Internet are proliferating as a new technology responsible for the next-generation Web. Due to the properties of such a large-scale system, it is difficult to measure the characteristics of the entire system without modifying the internal protocol of the applications. In this paper, by using a measurement method applicable to P2P applications and measured results obtained by applying this measurement method in part, a general-purpose method for estimating the size and behavior of the entire P2P network is proposed. Further, the present method is applied to a real P2P network and its effectiveness is presented by a specific example. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 1, 90(3): 54–63, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecja.20318