A Generalized File Replication Scheme with Diffusion-Based Storage Load Balancing Function in Unstructured P2P File-Sharing Networks

In this paper, we provide a generalized file replication scheme with a storage load balancing function in unstructured P2P file-sharing networks. The generalized file replication scheme is expressed as a weighted mixture of the concepts introduced in existing schemes. A mathematical analysis shows that the system behavior realized by the generalized file replication scheme can be described by a thermal diffusion equation composed of heat, reaction and diffusion terms, the weights of which are controlled by a parameter of the mixing rate. Here, the heat term represents a function to enhance file search performance by making replicas on specific peers. The reaction term represents a function to avoid concentrations of storage loads on specific peers. The diffusion term represents a function to uniform the storage loads among peers. The simulation results show that the generalized file replication scheme enables us to control the trade-off between search and storage load balancing performances extensively and intuitively by controlling the parameter of the mixing rate. In addition, the simulation results show that the generalized file replication scheme can adapt to dynamic P2P file-sharing environments.