Characterizing the file hosting ecosystem: A view from the edge

We present a comprehensive, longitudinal characterization study of the file hosting ecosystem using HTTP traces collected from a large campus network over a one-year period. We performed detailed multi-level analysis of the usage behavior, infrastructure properties, content characteristics, and user-perceived performance of the top five services in terms of traffic volume, namely RapidShare, Megaupload, zSHARE, MediaFire, and Hotfile. We carefully devised methods to identify user clickstreams in the HTTP traces, including the identification of free and premium user instances, as well as the identification of content that is split into multiple pieces and downloaded using multiple transactions. Throughout this characterization, we compare and contrast these services with each other as well as with peer-to-peer file sharing and other media sharing services.