Application layer traffic analysis of a Peer-to-Peer system

Self-similar or multifractal behavior has been observed for LAN and Internet WAN (backbone) traffic. Investigations about this kind of behavior for application level protocols are rarely found because sessions or even applications are usually too short to be characterized in this direction. Only Telnet and FTP were examined so far. This paper analyzes the traffic shape of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks using the Gnutella protocol. Data was collected using a modified LimeWire servent. Self-similarity was estimated using a variance-time plot. The results show that Gnutella messages exhibit a self-similar shape, regardless of the message type.