Size Does Matter (in P2P Live Streaming)

Optimal dissemination schemes have previously been studied for peer-to-peer live streaming applications. Live streaming being a delay-sensitive application, fine tuning of dissemination parameters is crucial. In this report, we investigate optimal sizing of chunks, the units of data exchange, and probe sets, the number peers a given node probes before transmitting chunks. Chunk size can have significant impact on diffusion rate (chunk miss ratio), diffusion delay, and overhead. The size of the probe set can also affect these metrics, primarily through the choices available for chunk dissemination. We perform extensive simulations on the so-called random-peer, latest-useful dissemination scheme. Our results show that size does matter, with the optimal size being not too small in both cases.