On the Stochastic Scalability of Information Sharing Platforms
Phuoc Tran-Gia and Andreas Binzenhöfer
Research Report 364
Abstract
Recently, centrally controlled information distribution systems are rapidly emerging to decentralized structures. This tendency can be observed in software distribution applications using BitTorrent or information sharing platforms based on distributed hash table structures like Chord or Kademlia. To ensure that the emerging platforms will function properly with a growing number of users and services the issue of scalability turned into one of the hottest research topics.
Traditionally, the term scalability often restricts to the functional scalability, which describes the scalability in terms of the system size. In this regard the basic structure is stationary, i.e. it does not fluctuate frequently. However, when the stochastic behavior of system components, the network structure, and user applications has to be taken into account, the stochastic scalability has to be investigated in the context of performance evaluation. In this paper we discuss the stochastic scalability of information sharing platforms. We give a classification of current information sharing platforms and define the terms functional and stochastic scalability in detail. A distributed phone book based on a Chord ring will be discussed as an example to motivate other areas of application and to show the potential of the evaluation of stochastic scalability.