Self-Distributing Software Updates through Epidemic Dissemination

Peer-to-peer systems have recently received tremendous amount of popularity in both research and commercial endeavors. This paper argues for the systematic exploration of a hybrid of centralized and peer-to-peer system design. We give an example application of peer-to-peer architecture to an inherently centralized service and show how this application raises an interesting research question in the field of epidemic information dissemination. We propose a previously unexplored push mechanism for the distribution of updates for system software that exists in millions of copies.