Modeling Dynamic File Diffusion Behavior

in P2P Networks
Baogang Chen1 and Jinlong Hu2
1
College of Information and Management Science,
Henan Agriculture University, Zhengzhou, China, 450002
2
Communication and Computer Network Laboratory of Guangdong Province,
South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China, 510641

Abstract. In this paper, according to the characteristics of popular files

downloading and transmission, the various states of nodes in P2P file-sharing
system are researched. Based on these various states of nodes, through a
multi-species epidemic model with spatial dynamic, file diffusion model of P2P
file-sharing system is proposed. By experiments, P2P file diffusion model is
proved to accords with the actual situation and to have the ability simulating the
behaviors of the peers in P2P network.
Keywords: P2P Networks, file diffusion, SEIR epidemic model, spatial
dynamics.

Introduction

The large number of popular file downloading behavior is similar to the process of the
infectious disease spread in P2P file-sharing system, which can be described with
infectious diseases dynamics. In the field of medicine, Many infectious diseases
propagation model have been investigated for a long history, which are the effective
ways to research process of infectious diseases propagation and to predict the outbreak
of infectious diseases.
Most of existing researches on the characteristics of the files replication and
diffusion only consider the steady state performance of P2P networks, and does not
consider the unstable states in the file diffusion process [1,2], or not fully reflect the
status of nodes in the system [3,4]. In this paper, the study of infectious diseases
dynamics theories are referenced, and the various states of users nodes are
comprehensively examined in P2P file-sharing system, hereafter a new model is
proposed for file diffusion in P2P file sharing system.

Dynamic Model of Infectious Diseases

In 1927, Kermack and McKendrick provided famous SIR compartment model when
they investigated the law of epidemics [5]. And later, a class of SEIR Epidemic Model
with Latent period was made on this basis. In the SEIR model, the population is divided
Z. Du (Ed.): Proceedings of the 2012 International Conference of MCSA, AISC 191, pp. 117122.
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into four groups. susceptible to infection denoted by type S; the infected denoted by
type I; if the infected have a period of incubation before ill, and the period of infection
is not contagious, then these people in the incubation period, denoted by E; recovered
class denoted by type R.
In 2005, Julien Arino et al proposed a disease transmission model with spatial
dynamics [6]. An SEIR epidemic model with spatial dynamics is considered for a
population consisting of S species and occupying N spatial patches. The total
population for species i in patch p is N ip and the population for species i is Ni0 > 0, a
fixed constant. At time t, the numbers of susceptible, exposed, infectious and recovered
individuals of species i in patch p at time t are denoted by Sip, Eip, Iip and Rip,
respectively. 1/ d ip > 0

1/

ip

>0

1/

ip

> 0 are the average lifetime, latent period

and infectious period for species i in patch p, respectively. The disease is assumed to be
horizontally transmitted within and between species according to standard incidence
with j ip 0 , the rate of disease transfer from species j to species i in patch p. The
dynamics for species i = 1, . . . , s in patch p = 1, . . . , n is given by the following system
of 4sn equations:
dSip
dt

dEip
dt

dIip
dt

I jp

j=1

Njp

=ijpSip

I jp

j =1

Njp

q=1

q=1

+ mipqSiq miqpSip
n

q=1

q=1

(dip +ip)Eip +mipqEiq miqpEip

n

q=1

q=1

= ip Eip (dip + ip )Iip + mipq Iiq miqp Iip

dRip
dt

= dip (Nip Sip ) ijpSip

q =1

q =1

= ip I ip dip Rip + mipq Riq miqp Rip

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Conformation of P2P File Diffusion Model

In P2P file-sharing system ,the state of user node is called susceptibility before they
search for files and propose their downloading request, denoted by class W; When they
enter into downloading queue after they propose downloading request, the state of user
node is called latent period, denoted by class D; When they share file for period of time
after accomplishing their downloading task, the state of user node is called infection,
denoted by class S; When users are no longer interested in the file and delete it, or users
nodes does not share the file after they downloading the file, this status is called
restoration, denoted by Class I.
Let X be any particular type of nodes, and PX denotes the number of nodes in X
class. In system, the user node has two states: on-line and off-line, and between them
can be transformed into each other. Therefore, all nodes within the system are divided

Modeling Dynamic File Diffusion Behavior in P2P Networks

119

into four different compartments, and each node has both online and offline status, such
as Won and Woff .
In the following, through analysis of user nodes number changes in various types,
we get the process model of the file diffusion behavior.
(1) Change rate of the node class Won
Firstly, a node of class Won changes its state from Won to Don because it searches the
download file and put forward download request. Suppose the rate of a file being
inquired, the ratio of the current file shared and the total number of nodes in the system
are proportional. Suppose the average rate of the user sending out file queries and file
download request is . According to standard incidence rate of infectious
diseases SI / N , then the class node Won will be converted to class Don with

rate PWon PSon / N P . Meanwhile, when some nodes enter into offline, the number of
nodes online will be reduced. If rate of offline is set at on off , the nodes of class Won will
transfer into class of Woff at rate on off PWon .As downloading nodes will lose
downloading sources, so they will be forced to seek new downloading source.
Therefore, these nodes will be reentering the Won class from Don class, and then set
the transfer rate of occurrence as r1 . When the node state transition from offline to
online, the number of Won class nodes will increase. Assuming that this conversion
occurs with rate off on , then the change rate of class Won can be expressed as:
dPWon
dt

= PWon PSon / NP onoff PWon + rP

+ off on PWoff
1 Don

(5)

(2) Change rate of the node class Don

There are four types of situations which cause the nodes out of the Class Don : nodes of
class Don terminate download back to Class Won because the source nodes are no
longer share files; nodes of class Don enter into Class S on due to share the file after
downloading it; nodes of class Don enter into class I on due to does not share the files
after downloading the file; nodes of class Don occur state transition from online to
offline. Set the rate from class Don into Won as r1; download rate as ; file sharing
probability as pshare ; the rate that class Don enter into S on is pshare ;and the rate that
class Don change into I on is (1 pshare ) . At the same time, the number of class Don is
increased, caused by two cases: the nodes from class Won to class Don and from

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offline to online. Set the rate from Won to Don is PWon PSon / NP and the rate from offline
to online is off on PDoff . Then the change rate of class Don can be expressed as:

dPDon
dt

= PWon PSon / N P PDon r1 PDon on off PDon + off on PDoff

(6)

(3) Change rate of the node class Son

Nodes leave the class Son in two situations: dont share files and change state from
online to offline. Let the average time for each node to share the file is 1 / , so the rate
of class Son enter into class I on is .Meanwhile, there are two cases to increase the
number of class Son nodes: nodes of class Don come into class Son and nodes of class
Don change state from offline to online. Suppose the rate at which the transition
Don class into Son class is pshare , and the transition from class S off to Son occurs at
rate off on PSoff . Then the change rate of class Son is given as:

dPSon
dt

= pshare PDon PSon onoff PSon + off on PSoff

(7)

(4) Change rate of the node class I on

When the nodes of class Don give up to share the download file, they will directly
come into the class I on at rate of (1 pshare ) ; Meanwhile, nodes of class S on end to
share file at rate .Then the total transformation rate of class I on nodes can be
expressed as:
dPIon
dt

=PSon + (1 pshare )PDon onoff PIon +off onPIoff

(5) Change rate of offline nodes

Offline nodes have four classes Woff

D S
off

off

(8)

and I off . Set all kinds of nodes

transition state rate from online to offline and in turn are the same. So, we have

dPWoff
dt
dPDoff
dt
dPSoff
dt

dPIoff
dt

= on off PWon off on PWoff

(9)

= on off PDon off on PDoff

(10)

= on off PSon off on PSoff

(11)

= on off PIon off on PIoff

(12)

Modeling Dynamic File Diffusion Behavior in P2P Networks

121

Experiment and Analysis

The model assumes that all user nodes are initially interested in a particular file, then
we select RMVB type files downloaded rank in the top 7 in MAZE log, and file name
called A, B,, G respectively.
Due to the users are interested in download files initially, then download request
interval is equivalent to the average time interval of all users file download request. As
users of MAZE system have obvious periodicity and "day mode", so online and offline
times of nodes are set up at 12 hours. Taking into account the user log lasting for one
week, the average time of file shared can be treated as half week (84 hours). Assuming
that the number of user nodes are distributed in download queue evenly, when the user
doesnt share file, then the corresponding proportion of users are forced to choose
download source again. Therefore, the average leaving rate of downloading node
r1 equals to the average time of user nodes to share files. Parameter values in Table 1.
Table 1. Experimental parameter values

r1
1

98E-4 1

98E-4

pshare
0

122

on off

00612 0

00138

off on
0

00138

NP
100068

In order to obtain the initial number of nodes that share files, the log data is divided
into two parts: the first 12 hours log data and the remaining time of the data. The
number of nodes that share files initially are nodes that finish downloading file within
12 hours multiplied by the factor pshare and then plus number of nodes available to
share file in the beginning. The initial value of PSon and PSoff are set to the half number of
nodes sharing file initially. The initial values of PDon , PDoff , PIon , PIoff are set to 0; PWon
and PWoff are set to the half value that N P minus PSon and PSoff .The average
download rate is defined as all users download traffic divided by time between all
nodes entering into download queue and end of download. The average download rate
divided by the file size is the rate of download accomplished per unit time.
With time granularity in minutes, and using parameter values acquired within 12
hours first, we calculate the number of file downloaded completely in latter 156 hours.
The result is shown in Table 2. The comparison of user log data and model results are
shown in Figure 1, 2. As can be seen from Table 2, the differences between the top four
RMVB files of user log data and the model results are small. But at the back rank of the
files in table, the differences seem obvious. The experimental results and assumptions
are related. Suppose that in addition to users sharing file, all other users are initially
interested in and will download the file, but the reality is that files on the back list are
not very popular, and not all users want to download. So model results biased.

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B. Chen and J. Hu

Table 2. Experimental result and real data

rank name

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

A
B
C
D
E
F
G

size
MB

386.
383.
441.
465.
158.
383.
734.

52
33
87
76
65
33
61

Download sharing number of nodes

nodes
node
downloaded fully

5838
5304
4368
3313
2629
1722
1399

157
146
138
114
96
33
66

log

model

2849
2678
2455
2021
1690
586
874

3106
2905
2791
2269
1997
720
1263

Conclusion

This paper analyzes the user node state changes based on dynamic model theory of
infectious diseases, and describe file diffusion model of P2P file sharing system.
Because of considering the online and offline status in user node, therefore this model
can be more close to the actual situation. Experimental analysis indicates that the model
can describe the diffusion of most popular file in P2P file sharing system very well.
How to use the model in depth analysis, and to research more P2P file sharing system
behavior and performance characteristics, is one of the main works in the future.

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