DAPES: Named Data for Off-the-Grid File Sharing with Peer-to-Peer Interactions

Abstract: This paper introduces DAta-centric Peer-to-peer filE Sharing (DAPES), a data sharing protocol for scenarios with intermittent connectivity and user mobility. DAPES provides a set of semantically meaningful hierarchical naming abstractions that facilitate the exchange of file collections via local connectivity. This enables peers to "make the most" out of the limited connection time with other peers by maximizing the utility of individual transmissions to provide data missing by most connected peers. DAPES runs on top of Named-Data Networking (NDN) and extends NDN's data-centric network layer abstractions to achieve communication over multiple wireless hops through an adaptive hop-by-hop forwarding/suppression mechanism. We have evaluated DAPES through real-world experiments in an outdoor campus setting and extensive simulations. Our results demonstrate that DAPES achieves 50-71% lower overheads and 15-33% lower file sharing delays compared to file sharing solutions that rely on IP-based mobile ad-hoc routing.