Probabilistic Heuristics for Disseminating Information in Networks

• Published in: IEEE/ACM transactions on networking Vol. 15; no. 2; pp. 425 - 435
• Main Authors: Stauffer, A.O., Barbosa, V.C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.04.2007; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Algorithm design and analysis; Algorithms; Analytical models; Bandwidth; Bidirectional control; Computer science; Delay effects; Distributed computing; Flooding; Floods; Heuristic; Heuristic flooding; Messages; Networks; Peer to peer computing; probabilistic flooding; Probabilistic methods; Probability theory; random networks; Systems engineering and theory; Tradeoffs
• ISSN: 1063-6692; 1558-2566
• DOI: 10.1109/TNET.2007.892877

We study the problem of disseminating a piece of information through all the nodes of a network, given that it is known originally only to a single node. In the absence of any structural knowledge on the network, other than the nodes' neighborhoods, this problem is traditionally solved by flooding all the network's edges. We analyze a recently introduced probabilistic algorithm for flooding and give an alternative probabilistic heuristic that can lead to some cost-effective improvements, like better trade-offs between the message and time complexities involved. We analyze the two algorithms, both mathematically and by means of simulations, always within a random-graph framework and considering relevant node-degree distributions