Peer-to-Peer Computing

The term “peer-to-peer” (P2P) refers to a class of systems and applications that employ distributed resources to perform a critical function in a decentralized manner. With the pervasive deployment of computers, P2P is increasingly receiving attention in research, product development, and investment circles. This interest ranges from enthusiasm, through hype, to disbelief in its potential. Some of the benefits of a P2P approach include: improving scalability by avoiding dependency on centralized points; eliminating the need for costly infrastructure by enabling direct communication among clients; and enabling resource aggregation. This survey reviews the field of P2P systems and applications by summarizing the key concepts and giving an overview of the most important systems. Design and implementation issues of P2P systems are analyzed in general, and then revisited for each of the case studies described in Section 6. This survey will help people understand the potential benefits of P2P in the research community and industry. For people unfamiliar with the field it provides a general overview, as well as detailed case studies. It is also intended for users, developers, and information technologies maintaining systems, in particular comparison of P2P solutions with alternative architectures and