Peer Discovery Crawl Control for P2P Network Identification
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
In peer-to-peer networks, the dynamic nature of user participation makes it challenging to obtain a complete list of connected users at a given time due to the lack of central information and high turnover rates of peers.
Innovation Solution
A method involving sending bootstrap request messages to peers that have not been previously contacted, until no new peers are identified within a predefined period, to build a list of participants by their IP addresses, with optional demographic analysis.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If continuous peer discovery is performed to maintain complete peer list in dynamic P2P network, then peer identification completeness is improved, but network bandwidth consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs peer discovery periodically rather than continuously, using a crawl delay parameter to space out discovery operations. This periodic approach maintains adequate peer list completeness while reducing network bandwidth consumption compared to continuous discovery.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs a limited number of bootstrap requests (crawl depth parameter) rather than exhaustive peer discovery. This partial action approach achieves sufficient peer identification for practical purposes while avoiding the excessive bandwidth consumption that would result from complete network-wide peer enumeration.
2Measurement precision
If extensive peer discovery is performed to identify all connected users, then peer list completeness is improved, but crawl time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs a limited-depth peer discovery process controlled by the crawl depth parameter, obtaining sufficient peer list completeness for practical applications without requiring exhaustive enumeration of all possible peers, thus reducing crawl time.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses a bootstrap peer as a starting point for discovery, performing preliminary action to initiate the crawl process from a known good peer rather than attempting simultaneous discovery from multiple points, which optimizes the time-completeness tradeoff.
3Measurement precision
If frequent peer discovery is performed to track dynamic peer population, then peer list freshness is improved, but network overload increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements periodic peer discovery with configurable crawl delay intervals, obtaining sufficiently fresh peer lists for dynamic P2P networks while preventing network overload that would result from too-frequent discovery operations.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and apparatus are provided for identifying participants in a peer-to-peer network, such as an Ares™ network. Peers are identified by sending a bootstrap request message to at least one peer; receiving a response from the at least one peer to the bootstrap request, wherein the response identifies one or more additional peers; and repeating the sending and receiving steps for the one or more additional peers until the bootstrap response satisfies one or more predefined criteria. The predefined criteria can be that the bootstrap response does not identify at least one new peer within a predefined period of time, or that the bootstrap response does not identify at least one new peer at all. The bootstrap requests are generally sent only to peers that have not been previously contacted. The bootstrap request message may comprise, for example, only one packet and requests that the recipient identify a predefined number of random peers. A list of identified peers can be presented to a user, for example, based on one or more demographic criteria.