Understanding P2P, using P2P

It is the abbreviation of peer-to-peer (it seems that I have also seen the article saying "Point to Point". I am not clear about it, or I am depressed about the online materials ), PEER has meanings in English, such as "(status, ability, etc.) equal person", "colleague", and "partner. In this way, P2P can be understood as "peer-to-peer", or "Peer-to-Peer Networking. At present, people think that it has a bright future in strengthening the communication, file exchange, distributed computing and other aspects of the network.

Today's Internet is facing a revolution. This revolution is striving to change the basic features of the Internet. These are network terminals (or clients), such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and PDAs, which demand a better network position to end the server-dominated internet. This is P2P.

P2P is a network model. Its basic concept is that any node can be used as a server or client. Traditional customer/server networks all have predefined customer and server nodes, while P2P is different. P2P provides some additional features, however, these features cannot be implemented using traditional models.
P2P: overview

The most common distributed computing model today is the customer/server model. Figure 1 depicts a typical customer/server architecture.

In the customer/server system, the customer requests the service and the server provides the service. In today's Internet, there are a large number of servers, such as web servers, email servers, and FTP servers. The customer/server system is an example of a central system. The entire network relies on central nodes and named servers to provide services. Without servers, the network would be meaningless. Without them, how would Web browsers work? Regardless of the number of clients or browsers, the network can only make sense when the server exists.

Similar to the customer/server system, P2P is also a distributed computing model, but there is a big difference. P2P is a non-central system (2 ), there is no distinction between the customer or server status in the network. Each entity in the network is in the same status. This means that an entity can request a service (client feature) or provide a service (Server feature ). Figure 2 shows a P2P network.

Although each node has the same status in the network, they do not require the same physical performance. A P2P network can contain nodes with different performance, from mobile devices to the mainframe. A mobile device may not act as a server due to its own restrictions, but it does not have such restrictions in terms of network.

Both network models have their own advantages and disadvantages. As you can see from the customer/server network in Figure 1, when the network increases (that is, more and more customers join), the pressure on the central server increases. When a customer is added, the performance of the central node is weakened, and its failure will paralyze the entire network.

For P2P networks, the situation is completely different. Because every entity (or node) in the network is a positive participant
Each node provides resources for the network, such as storage space or CPU. When more and more nodes join the network, the network performance will increase. Therefore, when the network increases, its performance will also be enhanced. You will not encounter expansion problems in the customer/server system.

There is also a big difference between the P2P network and the customer/server model: even if only one node is active, the P2P network is also considered active. The P2P network is unavailable only when no node exists.

However, although P2P networks have these advantages, you have to pay some price. First, managing such a network may be a nightmare. In a customer/server network, you only need to manage the central node. Therefore, P2P networks must be more complex in terms of security policies and backup policies. Second, P2P protocols require more "interactions" than traditional Client/Server protocols, such as when nodes join or exit the network. These aspects will have some impact on the performance.

The following attempts to reveal the influence of P2P in three sentences:

Peer-to-Peer is the end of the read-only web)

Peer Networking: allows you to participate in the Internet again (peer-to-peer allows you to participate in the Internet again)

Peer-to-Peer steering the Internet away from TV. As mentioned above, P2P is not a new concept, from some point of view, it is even the most basic idea of creating the Internet at the beginning. Let's take a look at it.

What can P2P do?

P2P brings infinite imagination to the distribution and sharing of the Internet. Some people think that at least 100 applications can be developed. However, from the perspective of current applications, the power of P2P is mainly reflected in the advantages of extensive sharing and search. In this regard, it is mainly caused, or better solved four types of applications on the Network: Peer-to-Peer Computing, collaborative work, search engine, and file exchange.

P2P resource links

Skynet P2P topics: http://www.yesky.com/20010926/198947.shtml
For more information, go to search engine !!