PEER-TO-PEER NETWORK EXPLAINED

Peer-to-peer, or P2P in its abbreviated form, refers to computer networks using a distributed architecture. In P2P networks, all the computers and devices that are part of them are referred to as peers, and they share and exchange workloads. Each peer in a peer-to-peer network is equal to the other peers. There are no privileged peers, and there is no primary administrator device in the centre of the network.

In a way, peer-to-peer networks are the most egalitarian networks in the computer world. Each peer is equal to the others, and each peer has the same rights and duties as the others. Peers are both clients and servers at the same time.

In fact, every resource and each asset that’s available in a peer-to-peer network is shared among peers, without any central server being involved. The shared resources in a P2P network can be things such as processor usage, disk storage capacity, or network bandwidth.

History of P2P (peer-to-peer) networks

The precursor of peer-to-peer networks appears to be USENET, which was developed in 1979. It was a system that allowed users to read and post messages/news. It was a network system similar to the online forums today, but with the difference that USENET did not rely on a central server or administrator. USENET copied the same message/news to all the servers found in the network. Similarly, peer-to-peer networks distribute and use all the resources available to them.

The next big thing in the history of P2P was the year 1999 when Napster came to life. Napster was file-sharing software that was used by people to distribute and download music. The music shared on Napster was usually copyrighted and thus illegal to distribute. However, that did not stop people from getting it. Although Napster was the one that got P2P into the mainstream, Napster ultimately failed and was shut down by authorities because of all the content that was shared illegally on it. Nowadays, P2P remains one of the most popular technologies for sharing files over the internet, both lawfully and unlawfully.

What is P2P used for?

The primary goal of peer-to-peer networks is to share resources and help computers and devices work collaboratively, provide specific services, or execute specific tasks. As mentioned earlier, P2P is used to share all kinds of computing resources such as processing power, network bandwidth, or disk storage space. However, the most common use case for peer-to-peer networks is the sharing of files on the internet. Peer-to-peer networks are ideal for file sharing because they allow the computers connected to them to receive files and send files simultaneously.

Example: you open your web browser and visit a website where you download a file. In this case, the website works as a server, and your computer acts as a client receiving the file. You can compare it to a one-way road: the file that you download is a car that goes from point A (the website) to point B (your computer).

When you download the same file from a peer-to-peer network, using a BitTorrent platform as a starting point, the download is performed differently. The file is downloaded to your computer in bits and parts that come from many other computers that also connected to the same P2P network and already have that file or at least parts of it. At the same time, the file is also sent (uploaded) from your computer to other devices that are asking for it. This situation is similar to a two-way road: the file is like multiple small cars coming to your PC, while also leaving to others when it is requested.

Source: Google.com

Why are peer-to-peer networks useful?

P2P networks have some characteristics that make them useful:

It’s hard to take them down. Even if one of the peers is shut down, the others are still operating and communicating. For a P2P (peer-to-peer) network to stop working, you have to close down all its peers.

Peer-to-peer networks are incredibly scalable. Adding new peers is easy as you don’t need to do any central configuration on a central server.

When it comes to file-sharing, the larger a peer-to-peer network is, the faster it is. Having the same file stored on many of the peers in a P2P network means that when someone needs to download it, the file is downloaded from multiple locations simultaneously.