Overview:
A peer-to-peer (or P2P) relies on the computing power in which clients provide the resources, including bandwidth, storage space and so the file transfer speed would probably be higher. Although there is no single server involved in this protocol but factors like denial of data transfer speed due to increased rate of users downloading the same file from the source is possible.

To overcome this problem, one research team found a technique called SET (Similarity-Enhanced Transfer) that claims to speed up P2P downloads by anywhere from 30 to 70 percent by increasing the potential sources of files being downloaded.

How SET Works?

Their idea is simply superb and embedded in their tag itself! Yeah I am talking about “SIMILARITY”. Actually what similarity has to do with boosting up the transfer speed? My answer is that it has many. Consider this example that while you are searching for music data in p2p you come across many sources of the same file. So we had the option to download from the list of sources available.

When you compare the sources, the data you want to download is absolutely similar but only thing that differs is their tags, titles or sometimes the versions. By identifying the identical data, SET searches for similar files by “handprinting,” method that is similar to the pattern matching techniques which after identifying are scanned for any individual chunks that are identical to pieces of the file being downloaded.

After identifying them, SET expands the available sources of any given file. By this process “SET helps us to download a 30MB movie trailer in only a third of the time whereas the rate of an MP3 download is increased by 70 percent” says Arstechnica.

Future Applications:

Seem like all Future peer 2 peer will implement this technique in their system. You can know more about how this system works by visiting here.