Peer-to-peer support for file transfer and caching mechanism

In existing Internet file transfer mechanism, proxy servers play a major role in load balancing and reducing duplicate file access requests for services like FTP and WWW. However, proxy servers are usually unaware of the availability of cached contents on other peer proxy servers. This is a waste of time since duplicate requests are needed. Unnecessary traffic can be reduced if cooperation and coordination among peer proxies can be utilized. In this paper, peer-to-peer support was incorporated in ordinary file transfer and caching mechanism to reduce unnecessary processing time and storage. Through the location service, hosts requesting file services can dynamically determine if a copy is available and its current location. Work load for file servers will be greatly reduced, and personalization of file transfer configuration can be fully supported.