Smart Peer-to-Peer Video Streaming: Comparing Adaptation Under Heterogeneous Conditions

We analyze two commercial peer-to-peer (P2P) video streaming systems via active measurements: a tree-based overlay multicast and a mesh-based overlay. Our controlled IP test-bed allows us to reproduce near-identical network conditions for both the systems and to test them under varying network conditions and peer behavior. We report on the bandwidth efficiency of these P2P video streaming systems under different network conditions and on how these systems adapt to heterogeneous networks and peer behavior. Our results include quality-of-service information in terms of the fraction of the total video stream received by each peer for live playback. We also report the server bandwidth versus P2P bandwidth consumed by the system under different conditions. The dynamic behavior of the P2P video streaming systems is captured via measuring the size of interactions (bytes downloaded) among peers. Finally we report the correlation between the underlying traffic-shaped bandwidth assigned to a peer and the actual amount of P2P data uploaded by the peer. Our analysis shows that the mesh-based overlay mimics the underlying IP network more closely than the tree-based overlay, indicating that the former is more network aware. On the other hand, the tree-based system is more efficient in bandwidth usage.