Delayed Chaining: A Practical P2P Solution for Video-on-Demand

Most home computers have upload bandwidths that do not allow them to stream good quality video. As a result, they cannot fully participate in peer-to-peer video streaming solutions. We propose to address that issue by letting these clients use the storage space they have on one or more remote servers. Each time a client plays a streaming video, it will upload a copy of that video to one of these servers. Once uploaded, that copy can then service another client wanting to play the same video. Our simulations indicate that our delayed chaining scheme can dramatically reduce video server workloads at all stable request arrival rates. Daily usage spikes can be easily accommodated as long as cloud copies remain at least 24 hours online. Strategies for handling the launching of a new video include introducing a price differential, using predictive prefetching and requiring advance purchases.