AbstractWe present an analytic approach to better understand and design peer‐to‐peer (P2P) networks, which are becoming increasingly important, as they contribute an amount of traffic often dominating the total traffic in the internet even today. We start from a graph theoretical approach for infinite random networks and enhance that to include the effects of a finite network. Our approach is valid for an arbitrary degree distribution in the network and thus avoids the need for extensive simulation, which would otherwise be required to evaluate the performance of a specific P2P protocol. Our analytic approach can thus be used for improved tailoring of P2P communication as well as to minimize the often excessive signaling traffic. Copyright © 2004 AEI
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