Research on simulators for peer-to-peer systems

Traffics produced by P2P system such as BitTorrent, Skype, etc, has been the primary networking traffic. Peer-to-peer systems can be very large and highly dynamic. Therefore, testing a new algorithm for P2P computing in real Internet is impractical and expensive. Simulation is another feasible approach to test new algorithms or investigate P2P system behaviors. Many P2P-oriented simulators have been adopted in recent years. Therefore, it definitely demands a comprehensive survey to descript and compare the main P2P simulators. In this paper, we classify P2P simulators according to some criterion. Then, we listed and analyzed the main presently available P2P-oriented simulators. Finally, we also compared these simulators according the evaluation criteria proposed by us. Our research results can be exploited by researchers and developers to choose the feasible simulator according to their simulation requirements.