Building scalable and robust peer-to-peer overlay networks for broadcasting using network coding

We propose a scheme for building peer-to-peer overlay networks for broadcasting using network coding. The scheme addresses many practical issues such as scalability, robustness, constraints on bandwidth, and locality of decisions. We analyze the system theoretically and prove near optimal bounds on the parameters defining robustness and scalability. As a result we show that the effects of failures are contained locally, allowing the network to grow exponentially with server load. We also argue that adversarial failures are no more harmful than random failures. A preliminary version of this paper appeared in Proc. ACM Symp. Principles of Distributed Computation (PODC), Las Vegas, July 2005.