Unified framework and an algorithm for searching in pure P2P-hop-value-based query-packet forwarding

In pure peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing applications and protocols using a flooding-based query algorithm, a large number of control packets (query packets) are transmitted on the network to search, for target files. This flooding-based query-packet-forwarding algorithm is clearly not scalable because it will lead to an overhead, such as an overwhelming amount of query traffic and a high CPU load, as more servents (servent = server + client) join the overlay network. To solve such problems, this paper proposes a new query algorithm based on a unified framework that describes a wide variety of query algorithms for pure P2P. This framework determines the number of destinations for query packets based on the hop value recorded in received query packets. Simulation results revealed that the proposed query algorithm can reduce the overhead in the flooding-based query algorithm without decreasing the succeess rate of retrieval regardless of the density of target files in the network.