Traffic Engineering Vs. Content Distribution: A Game Theoretic Perspective

In this paper, the authors explore the interaction between content distribution and traffic engineering. Because a traffic engineer may be unaware of the structure of content distribution systems or overlay networks, his management of the network does not fully anticipate how traffic might change as a result of his actions. Content distribution systems that assign servers at the application level can respond very rapidly to changes in the routing of the network. Consequently, the traffic engineer's decisions may almost never be applied to the intended traffic. They use a game-theoretic framework in which infinitesimal users of a network select the source of content, and the traffic engineer decides how the traffic will route through the network.