Cloud-assisted cooperative mechanism for file download in mobile peer-to-peer networks

Complex computational tasks, such as topology construction and neighbor selection, which affect the file download efficiency in mobile peer-to-peer (MP2P) networks, are difficult to perform given the limited performance of mobile nodes. Thus, a cloud-assisted cooperative mechanism (CACM) for file download was proposed in this study to address this problem. The CACM aimed to construct a stable network topology based on the improved ant colony optimization algorithm and select appropriate neighbor nodes by adopting multiple strategies in the download process. Moreover, the main computational tasks were offloaded from the mobile nodes to the cloud server. Simulation results indicate that the file download efficiency of the CACM is close to that of BitTorrent in the first download stage, and CACM performs better at the second stage. In addition, the average download time of the CACM is reduced by at least 5% compared with BitTorrent, and its performance remains unchanged with the expansion of the network scale. The finding in this study proves that the research of CACM is crucial in improving the file download efficiency in MP2P networks. © 2017 Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology.