Optimally designing caches to reduce P2P traffic

Traffic caused by P2P services dominates a large part of traffic on the Internet and imposes significant loads on the Internet, so reducing P2P traffic within networks is an important issue for ISPs. In particular, a huge amount of traffic is transferred within backbone networks; therefore reducing P2P traffic is important for transit ISPs to improve the efficiency of network resource usage and reduce network capital cost. To reduce P2P traffic, it is effective for ISPs to implement cache devices at some router ports and reduce the hop length of P2P flows by delivering the required content from caches. However, the design problem of cache locations and capacities has not been well investigated, although the effect of caches strongly depends on the cache locations and capacities. We propose an optimum design method of cache capacity and location for minimizing the total amount of P2P traffic based on dynamic programming, assuming that transit ISPs provide caches at transit links to access ISP networks. We apply the proposed design method to 31 actual ISP backbone networks and investigate the main factors determining cache efficiency. We also analyze the property of network structure in which deploying caches are effective in reducing P2P traffic for transit ISPs. We show that transit ISPs can reduce the P2P traffic within their networks by about 50–85% by optimally designing caches at the transit links to the lower networks.