Introducing "P2EP": the fusion between peer-to-peer architectures and Performance Enhancing Proxies

Nowadays, both peer-to-peer (p2p) technologies and heterogeneous networks are widely adopted. The p2p communication paradigm has been applied in different scenarios and for different purposes: from file sharing systems to Quality of Service (QoS) schemes. Besides, heterogeneous networking platforms have been recognized as a key technology in the modern Internet, being sometimes a need. However, they introduce some pitfalls and real concerns in relation to the standard TCP/IP protocol stack and p2p-based applications. In this perspective, many countermeasures and solutions have been proposed. This paper introduces a technique based on the integration of proxies within a p2p system, in order to enhance the performance of applications acting on a heterogeneous network composed by satellite and terrestrial links. The proposed approach is called P2EP to emphasize its roots in Performance Enhancing Proxies (PEPs).