An Insight Into Peer To Peer Network (P2P):

The peer-to-peer (P2P) can easily be defined as the network of two or more PCs together and share the resources of both the computers through a reliable service. With the help of interconnected resources between both the computers, files can easily be shared and transmitted on both the systems. In other words, each computer on the interconnected peer-to-peer network serves dual functions as a client and a file server.

The only requirement for a personal computer to join or connected to a P2P network is a credible P2P software and a working network connection. The examples of few P2P software programs, include Limewire, Acquisition, Kazaa, Morpheus and BearShare. All of these software’s can easily be connected to the P2P network, which allows the computer to easily access to other systems via the network.

Once you have connected your PC to the P2P network, then the configured P2P Software will allow you to search and get access to the required files on other connected computers. All the files can easily be placed in a shared network folder, which can be accessed by all the PC connected to the particular P2P network.

Architecture of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Network:

A robust P2P network is designed and configured around the notion of different peer nodes simultaneously acting as the both servers and clients to the other nodes of the network.

This specific model of the network is totally different from the typical client-server model, where all the communication usually proceeds from the central server. The most common example of such peer to peer network is FTP or File Transfer Protocol.

All the data of interconnected PC’s exchanged directly over the TCP/IP network via the logical overlay links. These overlays are used for discovery and indexing of peers and differentiate the typical Peer to Peer network independent from the physical network topology.

Unstructured Peer to Peer Network:                             

The unstructured P2P networks are not dependent on the overlay network by design, but it rater dependents on the random connections. Some of the examples of unstructured P2P protocols are Gossip, Gnutella and Kazaa.

The unstructured networks are easy build and they can allow of localized optimizations to the different overlay regions. However, these unstructured networks have some limitation as the lack of structure. When a peer want to find a particular file from the data in the network, then the search goes to every peer connected to the network. And there is no guarantee that any search query will find the desired piece of information in the end.

Moreover, there is no directly and indirectly relation between the content management and the peer to peer network.

Structured Peer to Peer Network:

In structured P2P networks, the protocol, ensures that the nodes find all the relevant files in an efficient manner, even if the resource is extremely hard to find.

The most common example of such structured P2P network is Distributed Hash Table (DHT). In this particular system, consistent hashing is used to assign the ownership of each stored file in the network. In this way, any partner can easily find the relevant file or piece of data with the specific hash numbers.