Toward a Quality-of-Service Framework for Peer-to-Peer Applications

P2P networks have caught the imagination of the research community and application developers with their sheer scalability and fault-tolerance characteristics. However, only content-sharing applications based on the P2P concept have reached the desired level of maturity. The potential of the P2P concept for designing the next-generation of real-world distributed applications can be realized only if a comprehensive framework quantifying the performance related aspects of all classes of P2P applications is available. Researchers have proposed some QoS (Quality-of-Service) parameters for content-sharing P2P applications based on response time and delay, but these do not cover the gamut of application domains that the P2P concept is applicable to. Hence, this research paper proposes an early QoS framework covering various classes of P2P applications; content distribution, distributed computing and communication and collaboration. Early results from the prototype implementation of the Peer Enterprises framework (a cross-organizational P2P collaborative application) are used as a basis for formulation of the QoS parameters. The individual performance measures which comprise the QoS framework are also discussed in detail along with some thoughts on how these can be complied with. The proposed framework would hopefully lead to quantifiable Service-Level Agreements for a variety of peer-to-peer services and applications.