A Strategyproof Protocol in Mesh-Based Overlay Streaming System

Rui Sun, Ke Xu, Zhao Li, Li Zhang

Abstract: CoolStreaming is the first protocol which introduces the mesh structure into Application Layer Multicast(ALM) in media streaming application, i.e. each agent may have two or more parents instead of only one parent. However, since the agents in Mesh-based ALM(MALM) are strategy and selfish, the effect of cheating behavior may not be ignored. To solve this problem, we apply the VCG mechanism design into MALM network model, and devise a strategyproof mechanism to avoid the agent cheating. As a result, the goal to maximize the system outcome can be achieved. In addition, we design a distributed algorithm to realize our mechanism. The algorithm can dynamically adapts to form a better multicast mesh, though ALM network parameters and constraints change dynamically in reality. The correctness and performance of this distributed algorithm are verified by the following experimental results.