A Clustering Scheme for Peer-to-Peer File Searching in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Peer-to-peer computing is a popular paradigm for different applications that allow direct message passing among peers. The existing P2P search algorithms in MANET (Mobile Ad-hoc Network) are flooding-based search that produces much traffic and network overhead. File searching efficiency of peer-to-peer (P2P) network mainly depends on the reduction of message overhead. This paper deals with a full form of cluster based P2P file searching approach for MANETs, which focuses mainly over reduction of control messages. For searching, our mechanism uses cluster head within the cluster but it also allows inter-cluster communication. Moreover, secondary cluster head concept of our proposal ensures lower message overhead during cluster formation stage. Our clustering scheme utilizes request suppression to reduce the number of responses for searching process. Cconsideration of alternative paths to a node facilitates to overcome link failure. In detailed simulation, we have showed that our clustering approach for file searching outperforms the existing ORION approach in case of reducing message overhead.