Objective
In the modern Internet world, combining mobile and high-bandwidth access, there are multiple possible services, participant roles, different classes of quality of service, and demanding (often distributed) resource requirements. Emerging new peer-to-peer (p2p) networks offer potential solutions but there are currently three basic problems for which there is no solution:
- Incentives need to be given to users to get them to provide their resources to p2p services;
- Economically efficient resource allocation needs to be achieved in the absence of a central management system;
- Scalable p2p communication mechanisms need to be in place covering all aspects of service provisioning and inter-operation.
The project will develop and trial an integrated solution to these problems that will allow peer-to-peer service creators and host, storage and transport providers to increase the benefit generated by the service.
Objectives:
The MMAPPS project will design, build and test a software system to provide management support for peer-to-peer services. It will carry out user studies to determine socio-economic incentives for end-users to participate in peer-to-peer networks. Target users are peer-to-peer service creators and host, storage and transport providers. Our system will enable target users to explore new charging options and business models for such services. Initial development will take place on a laboratory test-bed: user trials will be conducted in the context of a large research network (802.11b and GPRS/3G) for services currently being implemented in the city of Bristol (UK).
Work description:
The project will produce a software system for management of peer-to-peer services. Using the solution developed we will conduct technical and user trials to achieve the following outcomes:
- Give users the incentives to contribute their resources to the service;
- Model resource management mechanisms and incentive compatible pricing of services and resources;
- Provide for economically efficient allocation of resources sold by third parties in the distributed p2p system where bottlenecks can occur;
- Design a technical concept for sessions and services that goes beyond the traditional client-server concepts and a methodology for mapping this description onto a business model and vice versa;
- Design and develop open integrated service management middleware for computation, for data and for mobile and wireless network services that integrates technology of p2p services with business models;
- Resolve the tension between the need to identify oneself to peers in order to build trust, and possible desires for anonymity. Identification is needed both to ensure peers remember who has helped them, and to enable sanctions against defaulters;
- Provide security and integrity solutions. Our solution to the peer-to-peer problem will be applied to those peer-to-peer services that are dominated by computation, by data and by network services. We will demonstrate feasibility through rollout in a city-wide research Wireless LAN network currently being implemented in the city of Bristol UK. We will create guidelines for future regulation.
Milestones:
Major milestones are planned to coincide with the External Reviews of the Project:
Review 1 (6 months): requirements and basic draft of architecture definition finalised;
Review 2 (12 months): architecture completed, software modules specified, economic models created;
Review 3 (18 months): modelling complete, trial system built and trials initiated;
Review 4 (24 months): trial system completed and feedback into system's architecture and modelling. Trial and experiment definitions completed.
Final Review (30 months): Results of trials and experiments published, along with all final deliverables.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
EC1A 7AJ LONDON
United Kingdom