Jim Davis

Caching systems vendor Oversi has offered up a new take on managing P2P traffic that it says will be more effective than the traffic 'throttling' practices that landed ISPs like Comcast into trouble with regulatory agencies.

Oversi's NetEnhancer management software works in conjunction with its caching platform to redirect P2P traffic. Where P2P clients are getting content from expensive sources - those outside of a service provider's network, perhaps located on a costly interconnect originating in another country - the software can automatically redirect a connection to a closer peer. The software can be used to redirect communications to different parts of an operator's own network as well, in the case where a certain portion of the access network is reaching saturation. This approach is markedly different from traffic throttling practices that block or otherwise restrict communications between P2P clients.

Oversi's software is the first traffic management tool to incorporate support for the P2P protocol from the Distributed Computing Industry Association's P4P working group. The DCIA's version of a P2P protocol uses information provided by the network operator to find peers rather than randomly select them. This allows files to be downloaded six times as fast as a baseline P2P application while cutting traffic across the ISP's network.

PeerApp and Velocix are two other vendors working on support for P4P, with Velocix providing both traditional CDN service and hybrid P2P delivery. Other CDN vendors have been quiet about an interest in P4P, which isn't unusual considering that most aren't directly offering a P2P delivery option. While it will take time for broad support for P4P to develop, CDN vendors would do well to work with the aforementioned caching vendors and P2P software vendors like Solid State Networks and Pando Networks. These companies are directly involved in the cooperative development of a P2P delivery solution that cuts content delivery costs while behaving nicely on ISPs' networks.