The Ono project is a software service that allows
Peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) clients to efficiently identify nearby peers. Using local peers takes pressure off international and other long distance transfers, and is said to simultaneously increase file download speeds.
This is a research project of
Fabián E. Bustamante's AquaLab group at Northwestern University.
Ono claims to be able to increase download rates by between 31% and 207% on average, depending on whether the client is on an overloaded network or one with large available bandwidth. It is most visible as a plugin for the
Azureus BitTorrent
BitTorrent is a Protocol (computing), communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a Decentralised system, decentralized manner. The protocol is d ...
client - it is also available as an open tracker, and the Aqualab research group has recently published code to make Ono services easy to incorporate into other applications.
A more recent evaluation (one that used a single client connected to only one ISP located in the United States) has shown that Ono's benefits in practice are far short of the claims made in the original paper. In particular, when downloading real BitTorrent swarms while measuring the end-to-end benefits of using Ono, performance is unchanged, and interdomain traffic is reduced by less than 1%.
Ono is open source and does not require additional infrastructure. To determine which peers are close by, Ono learns from existing
content distribution network
A content delivery network (CDN) or content distribution network is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. The goal is to provide high availability and performance ("speed") by distributing the service spat ...
s (CDNs) such as
Akamai and
Limelight
Limelight (also known as Drummond light or calcium light)James R. Smith (2004). ''San Francisco's Lost Landmarks'', Quill Driver Books. is a non-electric type of stage lighting that was once used in theatres and music halls. An intense illum ...
. It assumes that if 2 client computers are sent to the same CDN server, they are likely to be close to each other - and more effective peers.
The
P4P project shares a similar goal to Ono, but requires co-operation with ISPs and the installation of "iTracker" servers to identify nearby peers.
See also
*
P4P - Proactive network Provider Participation for P2P
References
External links
Ono homepageOno article for designers' university
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517111548/http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/365 , date=2008-05-17
Distributed data storage