PEER: Peer-to-peer Enhanced Edge Router - 3/3
Despite their widespread popularity, peer-to-peer (P2P) systems engender continuing controversy. P2P systems provide cheap scalability and robustness for content providers at the expense of significantly higher network costs for Internet service providers (ISPs). As a result, ISPs have installed network devices to detect and throttle P2P traffic, while application developers have begun obfuscating their traffic to avoid ISP-detection. This cat and mouse game portends a broader shift. If ISPs remedy the relationship with P2P developers now, in the future developers may cooperate with them. Our proposal makes a noteworthy contribution in this direction. This paper reports on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a high-performance network device, the P2P Enhanced Edge Router (PEER), which reduces P2Ps operational costs. Our device facilitates an ISP-assisted, unobtrusive form of biased neighbor selection that significantly reduces expensive transit traffic. Unlike similar devices, PEER neither degrades application performance nor distributes content that may be copyrighted. Therefore, our work demonstrates that ISPs can take unilateral action to reduce P2Ps operational costs without alienating subscribers or risking legal prosecution.