Search performance analysis in peer-to-peer networks

Recently peer-to-peer networks (P2P) have gained great attention and popularity. One key challenging aspect in P2P resource sharing environments is efficient searching algorithm. This is especially important for Gnutella-like decentralized and unstructured networks since they have power-law degree distributions. A robust search algorithm should respond to the query message promptly without generating redundant query messages. We present unified quantitative search performance measurements: query efficiency, search responsiveness, and search efficiency to objectively capture dynamic behaviors of various search algorithms from different perspectives. To gain insight of these search algorithms, we quantitatively characterize, through simulations, their search performance on different network topologies with different query/replication distributions.