The goal of the CoopNet (Cooperative Networking) project is to investigate ways in which selective use of peer-to-peer (P2P) communication can help improve the performance and/or functionality of client-server applications. CoopNet differs from many other P2P systems in a few ways: (a) P2P communication is used to complement rather than replace client-server communication, and (b) a minimal assumption is made about the willingness of peers to cooperate and the duration of such cooperation; an individual peer may participate in CoopNet for just a few minutes.
The initial set of applications we are focussing on are: (a) Web flash crowd alleviation, and (b) streaming media content distribution. To ensure the resilience in the latter, we use Multiple Description Coding (MDC) for efficient redundancy in data and multiple diverse and short trees for redundancy in network path.
We are also conducting a study of peer-to-peer network performance among broadband hosts (DSL, cable modem, etc.) in the Internet.