Peer-to-Peer Database Server Based on BitTorrent

摘要

Database systems have traditionally used a Client-Server architecture, with clients sending queries to a database server. If the server becomes overloaded, clients will experience an increase in query response time, and in the worst case the server may be unable to provide any service at all. In the domain of file-sharing, the problem of server overloading has been successfully addressed by the use of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) techniques in which users (peers) supply files or pieces of files to each other. This paper describes the Wigan P2P Database System, which was designed to investigate if P2P techniques for reducing server load and so increasing system scalability can be applied successfully in a database environment. It is based on the popular BitTorrent file-sharing protocol. This paper introduces the Wigan system architecture, explaining how the BitTorrent approach must be modified for a P2P database server. It presents and analyses experimental results obtained using a simulator. These show that the approach can succeed in delivering scalability in particular cases.