Characteristics Of Peer To Peer Technology (P2P)

Peer to Peer technology (P2P)

Rohit Trivedi

2015297, Section E, [e-mail]

INTRODUCTION

Peer-to-peer (P2P) is an substitute, network model to that provided by traditional client-server architecture. P2P networks use a decentralised model in which each machine, referred to as a peer, functions as a client with its own layer of server functionality. A peer plays act as of a client and a server at the same time. That is, the peer can begin requests to other peers, and at the same time answer to incoming requests from other peers on the network. It differs from the traditional client-server model where a client can only send requests to a server and then wait for the server’s response. With a client-server approach, the performance

Each peer can upload and download at the same time, and in a process like this, new peers can join the group while old peers leave at any time. This dynamic re-organisation of group peer members is transparent to end-users. Another characteristic of a P2P network is its capability in terms of fault-tolerance. When a peer goes down or is disconnected from the network, the P2P application will continue by using other peers. For example, in a Bit Torrent system, any clients downloading a certain file are also serving as servers. When a client finds one of the peers is not responding, it searches for other peers, picks up parts of the file where the old peer was, and continues the download process. Compared to a client-server model, where all communication will stop if the server is down, a P2P network is more fault-tolerant. Peers make a portion of their resources, such as processing power, disk storage or network bandwidth, directly available

The peer-to-peer movement allowed millions of Internet users to connect "directly, forming groups and collaborating to become user-created search engines, virtual supercomputers, and file systems." The basic concept of peer-to-peer computing was envisioned in earlier software systems and networking discussions, reaching back to principles stated in the first Request for Comments

Tim Berners-Lee's vision for the World Wide Web was close to a P2P network in that it assumed each user of the web would be an active editor and contributor, creating and linking content to form an interlinked "web" of links. The early Internet was more open than present day, where two machines connected to the Internet could send packets to each other without firewalls and other security measures. This contrasts to the broadcasting-like structure of the web as it has developed over the years. As a precursor to the Internet, ARPANET was a successful client-server network where "every participating node could request and serve content." However, ARPANET was not self-organized and it lacked the ability to "provide any means for context or content based routing beyond 'simple' addressed based