In peer-to-peer file sharing systems, file replication and consistency maintenance are widely used techniques for high system performance. Despite significant interdependencies between them, these two issues are typically addressed separately. Most file replication methods rigidly specify replica nodes, leading to low replica utilization, unnecessary replicas and hence extra consistency maintenance overhead. Most consistency maintenance methods propagate update messages based on message spreading or a structure without considering file replication dynamism, leading to inefficient file update and hence high possibility of outdated file response. This paper presents an Integrated file Replication and consistency Maintenance mechanism (IRM), that integrates the two techniques in a systematic and harmonized manner. It achieves high efficiency in file replication and consistency maintenance at a significantly lower cost. Instead of passively accepting replica and update, each node determines file replication and update polling by dynamically adapting to time-varying file query and update rates, which avoids unnecessary file replications and updates. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of IRM in comparison with other approaches. It dramatically reduces overhead and yields significant improvements on the efficiency of both file replication and consistency maintenance approaches.
