Constructing a proximity-aware power law overlay network

Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks offer a message exchanging overlay for distributed applications such as file sharing, application layer multicast, and publisher/subscriber system. The communication efficiency of the underlying overlay network is thus one of the primary factors that determine the performance of those applications. In this paper, we propose a P2P overlay network aiming at offering the low maintenance overhead of unstructured P2P networks and the scalability and communication efficiency of structured P2P networks. We design a distributed algorithm to construct low-diameter overlay networks with power law topologies. Peers consider both network proximity information and capacity of existing peers when choosing their P2P network neighbors. Using an application layer multicast system as our example, we demonstrate that our system can provide generic, scalable, and low diameter overlay networks for distributed applications that demand efficient P2P communication supports