Characterizing Gnutella Network Properties for Peer-to-Peer Network Simulation

A P2P network that is overlayed over Internet can consist of thousands, or even millions of nodes. To analyze the performance of a P2P network, or an algorithm or protocol designed for a P2P network, simulation studies have to be performed quite often, and simulation studies require the use of appropriate models for various components and parameters of a P2P network simulated. Therefore it is important to have models and statistical information about various parameters and properties of a P2P network. This paper tries to model and obtain the characteristics of some of the important parameters of one widely used P2P network, Gnutella. The methodology to derive the characteristics is based on collecting P2P protocol traces from the Gnutella network that is currently running over the Internet, and analyzing the collected traces. The results we present in this paper will be an important ingredient for studies that are based on simulation of P2P networks, especially unstructured P2P networks.