Review of Replication Schemes for Unstructured P2P Networks

To improve unstructured P2P system performance, one wants to minimize the number of peers that have to be probed for the shortening of the search time. A solution to the problem is to employ a replication scheme, which provides high hit rate for target files. Replication can also provide load balancing and reduce access latency if the file is accessed by a large population of users. This paper briefly describes various replication schemes that have appeared in the literature and also focuses on a novel replication technique called Q-replication to increase availability of objects in unstructured P2P networks. The Q-replication technique replicates objects autonomously to suitable sites based on object popularity and site selection logic by extensively employing Q-learning concept.