Microsoft takes on BitTorrent

Microsoft has published a research paper outlining new file sharing technology similar to that used by BitTorrent.

Codenamed Avalanche, the software uses a new technique called 'network coding' which breaks data into small, easily transferable packets to accelerate downloading, but includes details on all the other data in the file.

This allows the file to be reconstructed from all available packets in any order, not just sequentially as with current systems.

"The best example of an end-system co-operative architecture is BitTorrent, which became extremely popular as a way of delivering Linux distributions and other popular content," said the report's authors Microsoft's Pablo Rodriguez Rodriguez and Christos Gkantsidis from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

"Despite their enormous potential and popularity, existing end-system co-operative schemes may suffer from a number of inefficiencies which decrease their overall performance.

"We propose a new end-system co-operative solution that uses network coding, i.e. data encoding at the interior nodes of the network, to overcome most of these problems."

The researchers claim performance improvements of 20 to 30 per cent compared to coding at the server only, and by up to three times compared to sending unencoded information.

The software also contains systems to discourage 'leeches', those who download others' material without sharing it. Priority is given to users uploading as well as downloading material, and the system monitors the ratio of information sharing.

Rodriguez and Gkantsidis confirmed that they have a working application, but gave no details as to when it might become available.

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