Architecture of a network-aware P2P-TV application: the NAPA-WINE approach

Peer to Peer streaming (P2P-TV) applications have recently emerged as cheap and efficient solutions to provide real time streaming services over the Internet. For the sake of simplicity, typical P2P-TV systems are designed and optimized following a pure layered approach, thus ignoring the effect of design choices on the underlying transport network. This simple approach, however, may constitute a threat for the network providers, due to the congestion that P2P-TV traffic can potentially generate. In this article, we present and discuss the architecture of an innovative, network cooperative P2PTV application that is being designed and developed within the STREP Project NAPA WINE. Our application is explicitly targeted to favor cooperation between the application and the transport network layer.