How P2P streaming systems scale over time under a flash crowd
Fangming Liu, Bo Li, Lili Zhong, Baochun Li, Di Tao Niu · 2009
Abstract—Peer-to-Peer (P2P) live video streaming systems have recently received significant attention, with commercial deployment gaining increased popularity in the Internet. It is evident in our empirical experiences with real-world systems that, it is not uncommon to have hundreds of thousands of viewers trying to join a program in the first few minutes of a live broadcast. This phenomenon in live streaming systems, referred as the flash crowd, poses unique challenges in the system design. In this paper, we develop a mathematical model to capture the inherent relationship between time and scale during a flash crowd. We derive an upper bound on the system scale, and then demonstrate that the timing factor plays a critical role for such a system to scale. In addition, our analysis also brings a more indepth understanding with respect to the use of Gossip protocols, i.e., the effects of partial knowledge. I.