An agent-based incentive mechanism for P2P systems

With the increasing uses of peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, the problems of fair information and resources sharing become serious. P2P systems are self-organizing, distributed systems with no centralized authority, such as Free-riding and Tragedy of Commons. Because of the voluntary participation and lack of motivation, the information and resources available in P2P networks are extremely variable and unpredictable. This article studied the problems existing in P2P networks and propose a different method to stimulate the peers in P2P networks to share information and resources, using agents so as to improve the performance of P2P networks. And through simulation experiments and analyzing the results, it can be concluded that this mechanism can effectively solve the problems of fair sharing in P2P systems.