An analytical model for multi-epidemic information dissemination

Contemporary distributed systems usually involve the spreading of information by means of ad-hoc dialogs between nodes (peers). This paradigm resembles the spreading of a virus in the biological perspective (epidemics). Such abstraction allows us to design and implement information dissemination schemes with increased efficiency. In addition, elementary information generated at a certain node can be further processed to obtain more specific, higher-level and more valuable information. Such information carries specific semantic value that can be further interpreted and exploited throughout the network. This is also reflected in the epidemical framework through the idea of virus transmutation which is a key component in our model. We establish an analytical framework for the study of a multi-epidemical information dissemination scheme in which diverse ‘transmuted epidemics’ are spread. We validate our analytical model through simulations. Key outcomes of this study include the assessment of the efficiency of the proposed scheme and the prediction of the characteristics of the spreading process (multi-epidemical prevalence and decay).