Abstract: This paper proposes and evaluates different protocols for individual
peers to self-configure the P2P overlay networks in various network
environments. For small-scale homogeneous networks, an optimizer peer selection
protocol is proposed and found to be superior to other peer selection
protocols, including random, egoist, altruist and greedy protocols, in terms of
network diameter and node eccentricity. For large-scale heterogeneous P2P
systems, peer-power based peer selection protocols are proposed to
self-configure semi-structured overlay networks for heterogeneous P2P systems.
An index-based query mechanism is also proposed for peers to search documents
in the P2P network. Performance studies demonstrate that the proposed
self-configuration protocols and search scheme are efficient and viable, and
the self-configured P2P network has a significantly lower query cost than
traditional Gnutella-like P2P systems. In addition, a caching-assisted query
mechanism is proposed to exploit the surplus storage power of the peers,
improving further the query efficiency. Caching-assisted query permits a
quicker response to subsequent queries for popular data without incurring the
excessive overhead of globally replicated directory information.